By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Western State University seems to be seeing a rise in student engagement with students back on campus, and that, in large part, is due to the work of the Student Government Association.
Missouri Western SGA Vice President Connor Peters says that student engagement this year has come roaring back. Peters adds that with fewer COVID-19 restrictions on campus now, it's made students engage with their peers more.
"I think it's given students the opportunity again to in a physical space get engaged with their peers," Peters tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr. "And so, there has been a huge uptick in student organizations and student interest in institutions like SGA, Student Government Association, it's been like night and day."
Peters says that it's a huge juxtaposition between this year and last year when Missouri Western was in the heat of the COVID pandemic.
SGA President Nathan Scott says he was elected president just before spring break; just before Missouri Western shut its campus down.
Scott says with the campus shutdown, the student government association had to step up in different ways, adding that at times it was kind of like crisis management.
"How do you advocate for students that are now switching involuntarily to an online setting, the destruction of a lot of events that we would be able to do as we all went virtual," Scott says. "Just trying to navigate that was quite an interesting thing to be elected student body president one day, and then the next it's all completely different, the entire paradigm shifts."
Peters says that another big change for the SGA was all events going digital, and even having to learn programming and creating new activities in an online setting.
Student engagement on the campus of Missouri Western State University is said to be at an all-time high, in large part due to the work of the Student Government Association.
A recent food drive illustrates the point.
The Missouri Western SGA recently competed with the Northwest Missouri State University SGA to stock the food cabinets on both campuses, which saw Missouri Western come out on top.
Missouri Western SGA President Nathan Scott says the biggest surprise of the food drive was how involved the students got.
"We thought the competitions between the departments and the organizations would be the largest driver of donations, but really what I was surprised with was the spirit of service that so many of our students have," Scott says. "Because a majority of our donations, which we didn't expect this, was going to come from individual students."
A total of more than three-thousand pounds of food was donated during the food drives in St. Joseph and Maryville.
Missouri Western came out on top in the competition donating 2,386 pounds of food while Northwest donated 1,360 pounds.