Most SGAs don't do well at keeping in touch with students

Elizabeth Wright, Danielle Baugh | GNP contributors

When college students are your constituents, the internet, and especially social media, should be the most effective way to keep in touch with them.

But university student governments across the country are struggling to do so. In fact, for their overall performance, they earn an F from the American Student Government Association. For the way they govern, a D-.

Staying in touch with them, knowing and responding to their issue and concerns, that is a big part of student government. The Greenville News Project spent the Fall semester examining whether and how well SGAs across the UNC System are doing that.

GNP found that SGA websites across UNC schools vary widely in quality, accessibility and usefulness. It also found that as a group, SGA leaders are not all that accessible.

By phone and email, GNP reached out to SGA leaders at 12 UNC System universities to ask how their governments stay in touch with their student-constituents. On the test of responsiveness to student journalists, leaders at 10 of the SGAs failed. ECU and UNC Charlotte passed.

At ECU, Student Assembly speaker Rushil Sachania said he was unaware of the ASGA grades for student governments. The same was true for UNCC SGA President Isaiah Grayson. Neither flatly disagreed with the grades, though.

Reaching out by web, social media

UNC System SGAs vary a lot in the kinds of basic government information they post to their websites, a GNP review found. That includes meeting agendas, contact details, initiatives, election information, and links to social media. Slightly more than half of them post most categories of that material. Links for social media engagement ranked the lowest.

Many SGA websites are difficult to navigate, with important information buried several layers deep. At ECU, users must submit a request to access records of past meetings.

ECU s SGA social media presence is mixed. On X, formerly Twitter, it has 2,258 followers, but the account appears outdated, with the most recent post dating back to March 20, 2022. On Instagram, it has 4,164 followers. Its Facebook account has 977 followers, with more recent activity posted within the last few days.

It is unclear whether most or all of them are current students versus alumni or people who are neither. If they are current students, then ECU s SGA reaches 11% of them through X, 21% through Instagram, and 5% by its most updated platform, Facebook.

Sachania said improving communication with students is a priority for ECU s SGA this academic year. That s definitely something that we have talked about before, because one of our biggest issues year after year is getting information out to students, he said.

Accessibility, student engagement

At ASGA, the national SGA group, Executive Director Butch Oxendine emphasizes that online tools alone are not enough to engage students.

It s important to engage with people directly, he said. That means having conversations face-to-face instead of relying on social media, sidewalk chalk, the internet or platforms like Snapchat.

Oxendine said he once attended a town hall at a university with an enrollment of about 40,000 students, and only seven of them showed up.

Students don t care about student government because it s not relevant to their lives, he said. They re just living their lives. And why would they [care]? We don t care unless it impacts us. And so, it s not their fault. It s the nature of government.

Sachania said that at ECU, student engagement with SGA varies by the issue and the campus, of which ECU has two: the main one downtown and the health sciences one at the hospital.

If there s nothing of any major significance happening within that, unless there s something specific to ECU happening, we don t have a ton of communication with students as far as them reaching out to us, he said.

Students typically contact the SGA through word of mouth, conversations with their peers on the Student Assembly, or by an email submission form on the SGA website. Submissions are checked regularly, Sachania said.

He said that ECU s SGA often acts as a middleman between students and university administration, particularly on serious issues. He cited recent student concerns regarding sexual assaults on campus as an example.

We recently had Deputy Chief of Police Chris Sutton come in to talk about that to our assembly, so that we could also ask questions based on the feedback that we hear, Sachania said. So, we are essentially a voice for the students.

The SGA uses Student Assembly resolutions to support, oppose or recommend certain actions to university leadership. It s limited in what it can do, just because it s not within our power to change those things, Sachania said. But we re basically giving recommendations based on all the feedback that we hear from students.

Sachania said ECU s SGA also implements student-led initiatives on campus. One recurring program is Swipe Out Hunger, which allows students to donate guest meal swipes to peers experiencing food insecurity. It could just be something as simple as getting them lunch in the dining hall, he said.

Another recent initiative put a photo booth in the SGA office at the Main Campus Student Center for students to use for professional headshots. Students said, We really only get two opportunities each year to take professional headshots , Sachania said. So, we worked to get a photo booth installed.

UNCC SGA expands outreach

Grayson said the SGA he leads at UNCC has taken a more aggressive approach to student engagement, particularly through social media. It recently revitalized its Instagram account, which has received more than 200,000 views in the past 30 days.

UNCC says it had 26,213 undergraduates enrolled for the Fall 2025 semester.

Its SGA plans to expand further by launching TikTok and LinkedIn pages, and by distributing monthly email updates to students. Like ECU, UNCC s also tables on campus to speak with students one-on-one.

Grayson said the UNCC SGA regularly meets with university administrators to advocate for student-requested changes.

Some tangible items we have advocated for in the last year are the inclusion of a Greek Row in the university s Master Development Plan and the creation of a Freedom Expression Tunnel on our campus, he said.

To gather student feedback, Grayson said he monitors platforms such as YikYak and Reddit, and he meets with students informally and at SGA-hosted events. Going to different things and simply talking to people and being a face they recognize is key, he said.

A national issue

Oxendine said the challenges faced by the SGAs at ECU and UNCC are not unique. There are 4,301 student governments we track, he said. This is a national problem.

He said average student-voter turnout for SGA elections at public universities is between 10% and 15%, with ECU typically falling below that range.

Oxendine said student governments can improve engagement through signature programs that students would associate with the SGA. A popular one is the student discount card for local businesses.

We re trying to set standards, Oxendine said. We don t tell anybody to do anything. We provide them with tools. If they want to be more than mediocre, then they have a real chance to do that.

Wright and Baugh produced this story for the Fall 2925 course, In-depth Reporting.