Student Government Overview: New members join WCGA and RCSGA

This year, The Collegian will be covering student government meetings with a weekly update. Richmond College and Westhampton College have their student body governments. 

Westhampton College Government Association 

Proposed Plans

There have been a multitude of proposed plans by the Westhampton senators and class chairs. Gurbani Makar, 2026 Class Chair, started an initiative to lower the price of the first lost Spider Card. A lost card costs $30, which Makar believes is unreasonable as every student is bound to lose one once, and the $30 could be financially unfair to some students, she said. Makar proposed to make the first lost card free to replace but to keep the fee for repeated losses. Other notable proposed plans included adding a secure box in the Westhampton deanery living room where students can drop off their student concerns anonymously.

Richmond College Student Government Association

New Members

RCSGA swore in the new members of the class of 2027 and sophomore Everett Weaver, who ran to fill an empty seat in the 2026 RC Senate. Weaver won the race against four other candidates. His speech focused on his proposed plan to add more nutritional labels to the food around campus. Weaver said that he had heard many people speak about how it was difficult to see what they were eating from day to day and proposed putting calories in GrubHub and on the Heilman Dining Hall screens.

Proposed Plans

RCSGA members proposed various plans to respond to student concerns. Class of 2026 Chair Tim Khoh previously proposed giving ROTC students priority registration, which would let them sign up for classes the same day as athletes. Khoh said that ROTC students had a packed schedule that they needed to meticulously plan their classes around. He proposed the plan last year, but it did not pass the Faculty Senate. Khoh made some changes to the proposal. According to Khoh, Schools like Virginia Commonwealth University, the College of William & Mary, and the University of Virginia give ROTC students priority registration.  Khoh thinks this would be extremely beneficial to ROTC students who struggle to plan their classes around training, labs and specialized ROTC Classes, he said.

“Yes, they're not wearing a jersey with a spider on it, but they are wearing a uniform with your country's flag on it, which I think says enough,” Khoh said.

Joint Endeavors

Student Organization Budget and Appropriations Committee

SOBAC guidelines have changed in the past year, and are available on the CSI website. The changes included adjustments to how the SGAs give registered student organizations contingency funding, or funding that was not given during the previous SOBAC timeframe because of new clubs or missed deadlines.

Events

Both student governments will be tabling to listen to any student concerns. The Richmond College Student Government Tabled in the Tyler Haynes Commons on October 5. Westhampton College Student Government will table in the coming weeks with a date to be announced. Students can stop by either of the deans to voice any concerns they would like to be addressed or simply to get to know their representatives. 

Contact news writer Andrea Padilla at andrea.padilla@richmond.edu.