As the school year comes to an end, so does 2009. With the end of a year and the beginning of another, New Year’s resolutions spring to mind. While most students will plan to lose weight, save money, make higher grades or accomplish other personal goals, the senators and executive board members of the Student Government Association will plan several goals to benefit Nicholls students. They should be, anyway, considering they spent the first half of the school year doing little more than discussing various campus issues. The SGA Student Senate purchased new computers, software and ads to better carry out their duties and promote their organization so they can tackle the troubles facing Nicholls, but they have yet to tackle anything but the outdated book loans, which should finally be ready to assist students beginning next semester. Instead, the senate discussed, and occasionally argued over, various issues without ever making any plans to carry out a solution.

At this week’s senate meeting, senators discussed ways to finally enforce the smoking policy preventing students from smoking on sidewalks and closer than 25-feet from buildings on campus. Several options were presented and notes were taken, but it was stated that the discussion was just the first conversation to get things moving in the right direction.

Senators and their guests seem to like to start the first conversations, hoping the ball will finally get rolling without applying any effort. The topic of finding a place on campus to convert into a student organization meeting space was discussed at several senate meetings this semester, but even when the idea was officially presented, it was made clear the discussion was only talk. Absolutely nothing was set in stone; they just wanted to discuss it.

Other topics discussed included increasing attendance at football games, encouraging more students to ride bicycles to school, finding a place to put the workout equipment that still works and creating a new economic impact survey.

Apparently, the economic impact survey, whose results were released earlier this year by the professionals in charge of it, was not good enough for the SGA. Ryan Donnegan, SGA president, said he would go ahead with creating the survey if he did not receive official approval to send it out by the senate meeting scheduled for Nov. 9. Unfortunately, the senate did not meet on that day, presumably due to the light drizzle sent over by Tropical Storm Ida, and Donnegan did not mention the survey at all during this week’s meeting. He did take notes on the suggestions for enforcing the smoking policy.

With all this discussion going on, the SGA should have a long list of New Year’s resolutions ready to keep them busy improving our University before the school year ends. We would like to think the SGA is already aware of this and is planning to carry out many of its discussed plans as soon as possible in 2010, but considering they never met over the summer this year, it is doubtful they will do much more than enjoy the time off from classes and their demanding student government jobs.