The Executive board of the Student Government Association challenged the Senate to a contest to see which branch could discuss issues with the most students before the week of midterms.Damian Breaux, SGA President, came up with the idea of the “Battle of the Branches Challenge.”

“I didn’t feel like we accomplished what we needed to in the fall semester,” Breaux said. “A lot of the stuff we did was internal. We are not here to sit inside meetings all day and serve ourselves. We are here to serve the students at Nicholls.”

To make the competition interesting, Breaux and Natasha Busch, the highest-ranking officers in both branches had to sign a resolution saying if their branch lost they would kiss a pig.

“We wanted some kind of consequence for the losing branch,” Lee Daigle, SGA director of public relations, said.

Because the Senate received more signatures than the executive board, Breaux kissed the pig at the beginning of the March 16 SGA Senate meeting.

“I knew it was coming to me all along,” Breaux said. “It wasn’t about kissing a pig to me. It was about getting the senators out there with the students.”

The senators with the most signatures were Ron Sapia, Natasha Busch, Andree Robichaux and Gregory Brumfield.

“We’re finally starting to realize where our time should be spent and where it really matters the most,” Breaux said.

The feedback the SGA received from the students was mostly about tuition and parking.

“Some of the issues are unapproachable,” Daigle said. “We have no control over parking, but we are pushing to get better parking for students.”

Other things students had comments about were book costs, dorm living and the student union.

Some of the things students want changed in the student union are a bigger food selection, larger eating areas, Sodexho to accept credit and debit cards, the restaurants to be open on weekends and louder volume for the televisions.