Bringing back old traditions was a focus for Student Government Association’s Constituency Week.

“The constituents are the voters, and on this campus, the voters are the students,” said Jen Weber, international business sophomore and co-chairwoman of the Constituency Week committee.

Constituency Week was held Oct. 24 to Oct. 27.

“It is student appreciation week and a way to present SGA to campus, because we are working for the students and want to hear their voice and show them that we are available in everyday campus life,” she said.

Through their efforts last year to reach out to commuters with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Tuesdays, SGA officials hoped to expand this event by receiving feedback and concerns from students, said Haley Humiston, mass communication junior and SGA vice president.

“Students do not often have the time or feel the urge to reach out to us, so we try to reach out to them,” she said. “Constituency Week was a way to get students and senators to mingle, enjoy free lunch, free breakfast and have SGA be more visible around campus,” she said.

SGA held Constituency Week about five years ago, and this year’s SGA wanted to modernize the effort, Humiston said.

“Michael and I started looking through a bunch of old yearbooks, because we are focusing on bringing back old traditions and acknowledging the ones that still exist,” she said. “We found this little flyer about SGA Constituency Week and found that each day they were doing something different like cakes in the Quad and fried chicken in the dorm rooms. We just wanted to modernize that and bring it back.”

SGA revamped the event by offering catered food from Raising Cane’s, donuts and coffee, a Senate meeting with catered pasta where student issues could be addressed, a cocktail hour in the sculpture garden to celebrate staff appreciation, and live music by Coyotes and The Blue Party, Weber said.

“We thought about different things that would be popular on campus and brought back events we have seen done in the past that people really liked,” she said. “For each event this week, we had students filling out surveys and putting it into our suggestion box before they got their food, so that way we were getting feedback, not just giving away things.”

The survey questions dealt with issues students wanted to see improved and their general impression of how SGA was carrying out its mission, Weber said.

Raising Cane’s was one of the events that brought out the highest student turnout rate, Weber said.

“The line was long but moved quickly, and there was plenty of food to go around for everyone,” said Funmi Adams, psychology sophomore. “I used to think that SGA was just a bunch of people in charge of student affairs, but now I see that they try to reach out to everyone and make them aware of their programs.”

SGA usually addresses a different issue every week by having senators reach out to 10 people and ask them their opinions about problems on campus, Humiston said. So far, SGA has covered dining services, athletics and the library, and will work on issues concerning the University Sports Complex.

SGA officials want to hold Constituency Week every fall semester and have high hopes for it in the future, Humiston said.

“It was successful because we delivered what we wanted to give the students, which was an open year with free perks and the students got to give their opinion,” Weber said.

Kamaria Monmouth can be reached at [email protected]