The Missouri Students Association will aim to make itself more visible to students through a project called MSA Outreach.

“We are trying to make sure we are staying in touch with students,” Multicultural Issues Committee Chairwoman Alex Holley said. “We want to be connected with students and make sure they know we are here.”

MSA plans to reach as many students as possible by dividing student areas such as residence halls, student organizations and Greek Life, amongst MSA committees.

“Committees will go to students and say, ‘Hey this is MSA and this is what we do,” Holley said. “It’s not just going to be (about) MSA Senate, we’ll explain the other braches of MSA as well.”

The Student Affairs Committee has taken on every residence hall west of Hitt Street and plans to outreach to each hall council in order to accomplish the visibility MSA seeks.

“Each member of our committee will be responsible for contacting about two hall councils to discuss what MSA is, why we’re relevant and how other students can get involved,” Student Affairs Chairman Tyler Ricketts said in an e-mail.

Outreach can be a huge area of growth for MSA, Ricketts said.

“Based on personal experience, I’ve discovered that students don’t come to your organization, you have to go to them,” he said. “Ultimately, MSA is only as good as the students it represents. So, it makes sense to increase communication with our constituents.”

MSA Senate Speaker Evan Wood said he agrees MSA needs to be going to the students instead of waiting for students to come to MSA.

“We (MSA) do an OK job of making ourselves available to students, but students don’t want to come to us,” Wood said. “We need to go out to the students.”

“If we put ourselves in front of students they will have a better idea of where to find us if they have questions,” he said.

The Outreach project stems from the poor turnout of the MSA SpeakOut event held last semester, Holley said.

“(SpeakOut) was right after Homecoming and we should have gotten the word out more,” she said.

Because MSA plans to go to students, the Outreach project will give a better turnout than the SpeakOut event and will be good for MSA membership, Wood said.

“Once students find out about (MSA), we tend to gain more members,” he said.

An increase in MSA membership is also what Ricketts would like to see as a result of the Outreach.

“After this project, I hope that more students understand what MSA is and does,” Ricketts said. “Ultimately, I would love it if we can recruit new students to this fantastic organization.”