By Jason Palmer
Contributing Writer
Hello Waves. The end of my time at Pepperdine has come and I have to be honest and say that my experience here at “the trendiest college” has been nothing short of amazing. We all have our share of memories and experiences that have made our time here special and I won’t bore you with mine. What I hope you may be interested in is what I and SGA have done for you over the course of this past year.
I want to thank every student for giving me the opportunity and honor of serving the student body as the SGA President. While this year has had its share of challenges and struggles, it has also proved to be a year of significant change for the better.
As I begin to explain what I have accomplished this past year as your president, I will include the Executive Board and SGA as a whole, because I would be nothing without the 40+ members of SGA who are really the servant leaders and have put so much time and energy into making this campus what it ought to be. Any good that “I” may have done is because of the SGA team and because of God.
This year the E-Board had a vision to place SGA’s focus on serving God, serving the entire student body as a result, making SGA a more effective well-organized body, improving the Pepperdine community, and reaching out to students on the periphery (students who don’t always follow the crowd and have a different idea of how they would like to spend their time at college than the majority have). I truly believe we accomplished our goals and went beyond that.
I can guarantee you that the 2003-2004 SGA is leaving the organization in much better shape than we found it. This is not at all to say that past SGA leaders have done poorly, or that SGA is now perfect (it will never be perfect and the Graphic staff helps us realize that). It is just that we decided to endure harassment this year instead of focusing on our legacy.
We set our pride aside and decided to work on the things that would improve the way SGA and Pepperdine as a whole serve the student body, instead of doing things that would make people ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhh’. We tried to still provide great events and spend student money wisely, but we realized that SGA needed a tune-up and we provided that boost.
Thanks to Dr. Andrew Benton and a proposal the entire E-Board compiled, SGA now has seven brand new working computers and a new fax machine to help plan and coordinate events and initiatives. SGA worked as a solid team this year and the setup of our meetings allowed for more equality and accountability within SGA. SGA presented and passed more than 30 resolutions to request action from the administration. Resolution topics included small things such as a frozen yogurt machine in the HAWC and clocks in the Sandbar, to large-scale items such as the much needed Towers Stairs, digital clocks in every classroom, the opening of John Tyler Road, and much more.
We hosted great events this year from Waves of Mercy and a great Battle of the Bands Concert, to SGA’s first financially successful concert in February, “Pirates of the Caribbean” in Alumni Park and “Wheel of Fortune” visiting the campus.
Wave of Week became a credible program once again and students were actually proud to receive that title week after week.
The E-Board worked with the administration to establish the Weekend Events Board and we worked collaboratively with administrators year round and developed a solid relationship between SGA and the administration.
SGA created online elections, which makes it easier and more efficient for everyone to vote, and also took great care of the budget and ensured no over-spending as well as decreasing the $24,000 deficit we received when taking office.
I apologize for anything that I may have done that made my co-workers look bad. It was a shame that SGA was criticized as a whole for anything I may have done as a leader.
Pepperdine had a truly amazing group of leaders within SGA this year who worked extremely hard to serve every student. I have been proud to work and lead this amazing group of colleagues, and I hope that you will all realize how fortunate you were this year to have a group who stayed late at meetings, made several sacrifices and gave up free time to work for you.
Whether you were a fan of SGA this year or not, I hope you realize at least a fraction of what that group of students has done for you and know that Pepperdine is better because of what they have done this year.
There is a lot that SGA did for this campus this year that will never be seen and we have come to terms with that. Many beneficial changes were made that will effect the way the student body is served and represented in the future.
I hope that you all enjoyed this past year and that we may have played a part in making your year at Pepperdine more memorable and exciting. I am so thankful for what I have learned as president of such a unique student body and for the phenomenal friends and colleagues I worked alongside on the E-Board.
I pray that God will bless each of your lives as you pursue your dreams and that He will bless next year’s group of leaders with the ability to successfully serve the student body and follow His guidance. Thank you for a great year and I will greatly miss the school and the people that have made me who I am today!
Submitted April 1, 2004