For student governments on campus, partnering with the Missouri Students Association often means being overshadowed. But it also means more funding, manpower and resources.
“I think that MSA has a tendency to take the lead (on projects) because we are the largest student government on campus,” MSA Student Affairs committee chairman Tyler Ricketts said. “We have the largest scope, in terms of our representation and our membership, because we represent the entire undergraduate population, which is over 25,000 students.”
MSA has partnered with the Residence Halls Association on projects such as the Bike Share program and gender-neutral housing.
RHA represents students living on campus, which is about 6,900 students, RHA President Chris Rucker said.
“When you look at like RHA, they’re a sub-sect, (a) subarea of (MSA’s constituency),” Ricketts said. “They represent about six or seven thousand, I believe, and that’s a similar story among the other student governments.”
MSA is more visible to its constituency than RHA, Rucker said, citing MSA President Xavier Billingsley’s monthly YouTube address.
“They have a more direct avenue to reaching their constituency,” he said.
Rucker said RHA’s style of updating its constituency is different than MSA’s. He said RHA tends to present finished or almost finished projects. MSA gives updates along the way.
MSA’s budget this year is $1,521,602, according to its website. That’s more than $1 million more funding than RHA, which operates with just under $60,000, Rucker said.
“There’s quite a big discrepancy there,” Ricketts said. “Granted, not all of that money is money we can use in the budget, but we certainly have more resources and manpower than others, I think.”
In the past few years, RHA has been working to bring its funding to its full potential. Rucker said RHA is expanding its programming and has had to cut several areas.
“Definitely, we’re stretched,” he said. “Pretty much every decision we make on money is highly, highly intensified on how can we get the most of (that money).”
MSA also has higher retention rates than RHA, contributing to their efficiency. According to MSA attendance records, MSA has 51 of 54 seats filled with the majority of senators attending weekly meetings.
Rucker said RHA has each of its 52 representatives, but attendance is an issue.
“On paper we do (have representatives), it’s just a matter of them showing up,” he said.
Ricketts said though MSA is more visible in large projects, it doesn’t mean RHA isn’t having an effect on campus.
“I think from the general population’s perspective, MSA will take the lead on a lot more projects,” he said. ”But I think that RHA has a lot of unique programming and things that they do that MSA doesn’t do, so they’re more visible in that area.”