After a few years of dwindling attendance, the Missouri Students Association’s retention rate is finally looking up.
MSA Senate Speaker Jake Sloan said in an email that regular attendance at this time last year was much lower than it is now.
MSA Outreach Chairman Nick Droege gave credit for the improved retention rate to the leaders of MSA. The Outreach committee was created to recruit new members for MSA.
“They are spicing things up, doing things differently and making it not only beneficial to everyone on campus, but I think it’s more fun for the people that are involved in MSA,” Droege said. “I think they’re starting to enjoy the work that they’re doing.”
Although attendance is up, the distribution of MSA senators per committee is skewed. The Operations committee has five steady members, while the Student Affairs committee usually has more than 10 students. The Academic Affairs committee typically has two to three members.
Operations chairman Logan Borgsmiller said his committee typically has a lower number of senators because it deals with drier content. He said he is able to delegate projects easier and projects flow more smoothly with a more-tight knit group.
“I know on larger committees, (and) it’s not necessarily their fault, but I know committee chairs struggle to get to know their committee members,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to (get to know my committee members) because I have a smaller committee.”
Tyler Ricketts is chairman of one of MSA’s largest committees, Student Affairs. Ricketts said his committee attracts students because of the number of issues that can fall under his committee.
“Really, anything can be boiled down to a student affairs issue,” he said. “(It) has a track record of really working for students.”
Although Student Affairs’ manpower can be a benefit, Ricketts said it sometimes hinders the committee.
“I think that the amount of students I have helps us find projects to work on, but that can also mean that we’re stretched a little bit thin sometimes and we can’t devote as much of our energy to one specific project,” he said.
The Senate Speaker is the only person who has the power to force a committee member to switch to another committee. Ricketts said that rarely happens, and a better way would be to educate senators on each committee.
“In terms of getting members to go to other committees organically, I think it will involve a little bit more information on what committees do so students understand when they’re coming in as senators that they have a lot of opportunities, even with other committees, to tackle issues that aren’t specific to just that committee,” he said.