Wichita State’s Student Government Association has begun making the transition to a new administration.

Members are discussing goals they have for the year and other issues.

Darren Beckham won the election in April and was sworn in on June 1 as the new SGA President. He leads the new executive team that includes newly elected Vice President Brianna Kitchings, and appointed Treasurer Matt Conklin.

Beckham is traveling in Europe and will return on July 1. Even so, other administrators have started setting goals for the upcoming term.

“Right now, we’re looking more internally, to make SGA more efficient and student friendly,” Kitchings said. “I feel like people were afraid to come in last year, so we’re trying to change that.”

Before Beckham left for Europe, Kitchings said they held several meetings within the executive team in order to set goals for the year.

Kitchings also mentioned a meeting she and Beckham had with WSU President John Bardo to discuss Bardo’s vision for the University.

Due to the highly technical aspect of acting as SGA’s treasurer, newly appointed Treasurer Matt Conklin is being trained by his predecessor, Tessie Arambula.

“It’s a pretty steep learning curve,” Conklin said. “It requires a lot of time to learn the processes and to become more familiar with the accounting practices.”

Conklin said he expects to respond to the steep increase in student and organizational funding distributed by SGA.

He said last year’s financial reports showed that spending on students and organizations essentially doubled from the year before. After implementing a new funding module that will facilitate fund access for students and organizations, Conklin said he expects to see an increase again for this year.

“By how much, we don’t know,” Conklin said. “It’s kind of hard to forecast.”

Increase or not, he said the main goal is to provide as much funding as possible for students, although he said this year will be an “experiment.”

“Having it double without the funding module is quite a big jump,” Conklin said. “The funding module is a completely different variable that we’re going to have to throw into the situation.”

Conklin also said SGA might have stricter requirements for students and organizations to receive funding to make sure SGA does not give out too much money too quickly.

Expected challenges aside, Conklin and other new SGA members are eager to begin the session.

“I’m really excited,” Kitchings said. “We have such a diverse Senate that I feel it’s going to bring a whole new aspect that we haven’t had this past year.”

Outside of the executive team, other senate members are also expressing their excitement to start.

Newly elected At-Large Senator Maddie Manda said, “This is a great year to start in SGA” because of the transition campus is in.

“I’m excited to experience that first-hand,” Manda said.