Dear Editor,

I spoke as a Director Emeritus at the Oct. 11 SGA meeting about my growing concern that SGA is experiencing mission creep. In 2006 I wrote a graduate paper sharing my concern about a weak organizational culture within SGA . This paper was based on staff reports and applicable literature.

In this paper I recommended developing a clear mission and mission supportive culture. I encouraged SGA leadership to develop a member enculturation and organization orientation process. Such a process should help instill the mission, values, structure and history of SGA.

You noticed I said SGA mission and values.

Since 2006 I have seen minor distrations occur but SGA leadership refocused there efforts towards fulfilling there mission. What I feared could happen if SGA didn’t heed my advice seems to have come to pass in the last two years.

Every organization is fertile soil for some form of growth. Flowers represent the fruit of an organizations mission lived out. Weeds representing outside interest that attempt to divert resources, chock out flowers and take over. A strong organizational culture encourages flowers.

A weak culture is susceptible to rampant weed growth. There are students who are trying to pull SGA toward popular issue advocacy. No matter how popular a cause may seem to be, advocating for popular social issues is not the mission of SGA.

If you go back to 1912 and read through the various iterations of WSU student government, the mission of this body has not changed. It has remained focused on support student academic success. The current motto of “Students Come First” was enacted during the 2004-2005 session by then SGA Director of Public Relations Jay Eck.

I knew Jay Eck personally. And I can assure you popular social issue advocacy was the furthest thing from his mind when he crafted this motto. The current leadership now have an opportunity to right their ship and and focus on the core mission of SGA.

I want to applaud the focused deliberative body I saw on October 11th. And I know former Senator Larry who was a SGA Senator for 20 years was cheering from above as well.

Thank You,

Richard Reed, MPA 08 SGA Director Emeritus