The Guilford Student Body Association was formed this academic year by combining the Community Senate and CCE Student Government Association. GSBA is seeking to make changes to the operations of the two older organizations.

GSBA hopes to better represent all students while creating a greater sense of cohesion between all students and the various student clubs and organizations found on Guilford’s campus.

One of the main changes from the Community Senate includes the integration of Guilford’s CCE students onto the board. This integration consists of a system of co-vice presidents, with one representing traditional students and the other representing CCE students.

“We need the perspective of the CCE students and their insight on what people need, that we might not see,” said Jeremiah Hedrick, the co-vice president of GSBA representing Guilford’s traditional students.

Through the addition of these new representative positions, GSBA hopes to see an increase in communication between traditional and CCE students. This aligns with the focus of the association for the year, which is centered around representation and inclusion as a community.

“The point is for CCE and traditional students to engage more with each other and for us to learn from each other’s experiences in a way that will be enlightening to all of us,” said Brandon Sullivan, the co-vice president of GSBA representing Guilford’s CCE students.

Another change GSBA would like to pursue includes more meaningful collaboration between clubs.

“We’re focusing on a lot of collaboration and trying to find similarities between clubs, and that’s not to combine the clubs, but it’s mostly to show how similar we can be and how our interests can sometimes merge together, and what that does is it builds audience,” said GSBA president Dwayne Duncan.

By encouraging collaborative work between clubs in organizing and hosting community events, GSBA is looking forward to creating a more closely-knit network of student clubs and organizations on campus.

“We would love to see them share not only support by finances, but also share culture and better understanding and why they are the club that they are,” Hedrick said.

In efforts to voice the hopes and concerns of the whole community, GSBA is also pushing to advocate for more non-GSBA members to attend and participate in the association’s meetings.

“We are pushing to have townhall-like meetings where we are discussing things that matter to the campus as a whole, and not just the clubs,” Duncan said.

Duncan believes this will play an integral role in allowing GSBA to better represent the entire student body, which remains one of the association’s main goals for the academic year.

“We are trying to dismantle the idea of ‘club members only can attend GSBA meetings,’ because we want everyone, all representations of students here, to be able to come and voice their opinions on things,” Duncan said.

GSBA is looking into additional ways it may help to create a more meaningful and engaging experience for all students at Guilford.

“We’ve been working on how to recreate things and make things better for the clubs, better for the students, and the clubs as well,” Duncan said.