Back in May, Associated Student Government President Elect Zawdie Terry had an idea.
“I had some free time and I was stopping in on all the meetings that were going on,” said Terry in an interview in May. “I noticed that all the directors were…facing some of the same issues.”
So he formed the Student Alliance Committee, a place where student leaders could meet once a week to find ways to better support each other.
“If you have different groups of people facing the same issues and working towards the same goal, that’s the perfect time to implement team work,” he said. “That’s when it makes sense to work together to accomplish goals and eradicate any problems that you have.”
After over a month of meetings, the Student Alliance Committee is not yet a chartered club, but they are moving in that direction. The main goal of the SAC has evolved from simply members of Student Programs supporting each other to the creation of a student congress. The SAC drafted a mission statement at a recent meeting, reading, “The congress will move to better Bellevue College by providing representatives of ASG, clubs, student associations, programs and the general student body a platform to address issues pertinent to the student population. Together, we, the students of Bellevue College, will form a pluralistic voice that is representative of the college and its constituents.”
Currently, group membership has been steady, with a core group attending most meetings. The group has representatives from nearly every student-funded program, including the Black Student Union, El Centro Latino, the LGBTQ Resource Center, Peer-to-Peer, the PALS Center, the Office of Student Legislative Affairs and the ASG. According to Sam Crenshaw, LGBTQ Resource Center leadership and a member of the SAC, meetings have been going well.
“Other than helping each other’s parts of Student Programs out, we also discuss how to form the congress best. It’s a lot of prep work.”
“I’m a part of the Student Alliance Committee to help students find opportunities to become successful and form a student congress that will benefit the BC community,” said Miranda Tamnkang, ASG’s new Marketing and Public Relations Representative. “I want to work towards bringing people together and forming strong relations with students to best obverse their wants and ideas on what a better community should look like.”
The SAC meets in C225 on Mondays from 2:30 to 3:30. Anyone is welcome to join.