BCSA Deals with Low Engagement

McKinney

Bridgewater College

BCSA’s third town hall was held in the Boitnott room. Topics covered included the rise in tuition for next year, updates to counseling services and possible funding for clubs through sports concessions.

Mackenzie Hammack, Staff Writer

Bridgewater, Va.- BCSA continues to deal with low attendance at town hall meetings while interviewing for committee chair positions, trying to encourage participation from club representatives and aiming to fill the chair and co-chair positions for next year.

BCSA’s third town hall this academic year was held on Nov. 18 in the Boitnott room with around a dozen students in attendance. 

Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Steve Bright spoke about the rise in tuition costs, and Director of Counseling Services Courtney Zangrone spoke about the changes in counseling services this year. The floor opened up for students to ask questions following the speakers. 

BCSA Co-Chair Amere Langley also announced that concessions for spring sports will include funding opportunities for clubs, although a large majority of club representatives were absent from the town hall.

Junior Olivia Stieler is the book club’s BCSA representative and has attended one town hall meeting this semester.

“It isn’t really effective because when I do go to the town halls or the representative meetings, nobody is really there, so it doesn’t have a large presence on campus yet,” said Stieler. “There isn’t much I can do. Everything they are saying is going to be implemented hasn’t been implemented yet. I just do it so that I can get our funding approved.”

While all clubs are required to have BCSA representatives to achieve funding, not all clubs do, as they are able to fund themselves through member fees or donations. 

“Hopefully having committee meetings will kind of help with [getting club representatives engaged],” said BCSA chair and senior Dolan Nethercutt. “We actually had a lot of people communicate with us that they weren’t able to make it since this is right before break. That means that people are aware of town halls. They know what their position entails, and they’re communicating with us that they are busy.

The committee chair positions still have not been filled. Interviews should be starting for those positions soon.

BCSA is also still searching for students to fill the openings for next year’s chair and co-chair. Originally, they hoped to announce who would fill those positions at November’s town hall.

“I think since we also just released applications for the committee chairs not too long ago, people that might have been interested in being chair and co chair have already applied for that and they haven’t gotten word back on whether they’ve gotten a position or not yet,” said Nethercutt.

Applications for chair and co-chair are still open. BCSA also announced during November’s town hall that they are planning a town hall for December.