Dixie State College Student Association council members interned through the summer in preparation for the activities and structure of the school year.
The team made improvements to help students feel more involved and excited about being a part of what DSC has to offer. Improvements were also made to ensure smoother sailing in various departments throughout the year.
“Every executive council has their own personality and agenda and their own way that they want to take the school,” said Jordon Sharp, director of student involvement and leadership.
For this year’s council, the key to a successful school year revolved around preparation.
“We had 40 major goals we wanted to accomplish this summer,” said student body president Brody Mikesell, a senior integrated studies major from Henefer. “The first big goal was to get all five members of the council interning for the summer.”
This decision was made knowing that, by including all five members, it would cause Mikesell and vice president of academics Brandon Price, a senior communication and theater major from Brigham City, to take a financial hit. Mikesell said this decision was made because it was the best way to get all the members ready for the year.
“We didn’t want this to be an on-the-job training when school started,” Mikesell said. “We needed the opportunity to bond and gel as a council, but we also needed it to get different aspects and departments working and functioning.”
Other goals from the summer included understanding DSC’s Orgsync page, planning out the budgeting for all of the activities for the year, and studying the DSCSA constitution.
“We were able to read over all of the bylaws of the individual departments so that we have a working knowledge of how each department functions,” Mikesell said.
Mikesell said they discovered that DSC does not currently have a Bill of Student Rights for the DSCSA, something they might not have found had they not spent the extra time looking over the constitution. They, along with DSCSA chief justice Rhett Sullivan, a senior communication major from Hurricane, are working to change the standing Bill of Student Rights over from the Associated Students of Dixie State College to the DSCSA.
Greg Noel, a senior psychology major from Las Vegas, and vice president of clubs and organizations, spent a considerable amount of time making improvements to the processes and fundamentals that clubs go through each year.
“I’ve been working on a guide to make the whole process of becoming a club president and being a current club president a little easier and help things run a little smoother,” Noel said. “It’s just a breakdown of some of the more pertinent information that clubs need to know how to do and really is meant to be a guide for them.”
Noel also made an effort to get in touch with leaders of every club on campus over the summer to get to know them and make sure they were ready for the year.
Council members have made an extra effort to make themselves available to all DSC students this year. All five of the executive council members were present at every freshmen orientation, and Mikesell gave his number to every freshman he met this summer. Email addresses and cell numbers of every council member are posted online and were on the backs of the W.O.W. flyers.
One of the biggest projects the council worked on this summer was redesigning the DSCSA logo.
“The DSCSA is something that every student belongs to, and we wanted to design something that they could feel comfortable with and rally behind,” Mikesell said.
This and other changes were made to make students feel more included in the DSCSA.
“We really tried to restructure student government to be what it should be: a representation of the student body rather than its own separate entity,” Mikesell said. “Students haven’t always felt like they are included in the DSCSA, when in reality they are our bosses.”
Overall, this year’s executive council wants the students to want to be involved on campus and feel comfortable and included from all angles. Noel said that he wants DSC students to be proud to go to school here and be a part of what the school is. Mikesell and the others on the council want to know what students really think about everything on campus.
“We would love students to come to us and tell us both what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong,” Mikesell said.
