Emory University’s Student Government Association (SGA) voted to establish a Belonging and Community Council (BCC) that will charter clubs that fall under Camus Life’s Belonging and Community Justice office. Legislators unanimously passed four separate bills related to the new executive agency during SGA’s meeting on Dec. 4. The office currently oversees Emory’s six identity spaces and hosts programs for first-generation and undocumented students.
A new associate dean of community and belonging will lead an advisory council for BCC and will work under Dean of Students and Associate Vice President for Belonging, Engagement and Community Kristina Odejimi, according to College Council President Neha Murthy (24C).
As an executive agency, BCC will receive funding and advice directly from SGA instead of going through another organization, such as College Council. The other executive agencies chartered under SGA are Clubs Sports, Outdoor Emory, Student Programming Council, Emory Entrepreneurship & Venture Management, TableTalk and Media Council.
SGA President Khegan Meyers (24B) said that creating BCC will benefit Belonging and Community Justice organizations by providing student groups with a direct representation structure and a more workable funding model than what College Council can provide.
Asian Student Organization co-President Chloe Chen (25B) attended the meeting on Dec. 4 and said that she was generally in favor of the new agency. The group was previously chartered under College Council.
Camus Life’s Belonging and Community Justice office oversees the newly opened Community Justice Identity Spaces in Cox Hall. (Holden Vance/Contributing Photographer)
Chen hopes that working directly with the advisory committee will give cultural clubs a more direct funding process, which she said has been a difficulty in the past.
Murthy explained that College Council felt that they were unable to properly support organizations that serve the entire University, as College Council only represents the Emory College of Arts and Sciences. About 400 organizations were chartered under College Council last year, and Murthy said that establishing BCC will take some of the burden off of College Council.
Additionally, Chen said cultural organizations like the Asian Student Organization serve students from all undergraduate schools at the University, not just Emory College, so she believes it is logical for the groups to be chartered under SGA.
“The idea that we’ll have more resources to be able to help the students and have that cultural event side is pretty helpful, especially since it’s sometimes a bit challenging to work with limited funding from College Council,” Chen said.
Meyers said that although SGA does grant funding to executive agencies, executive agencies “largely function independently” to allocate funds to existing clubs and charter new clubs. Meyers said he hopes that SGA can provide support to BCC but does not aim to have “a lot of oversight.”
Murthy said that the idea for the BCC started last year when the College Council experienced issues deciding how to equitably fund different groups on campus. She likened trying to balance the chartering and funding of cultural organizations with that of service, political and performance groups to “comparing apples to oranges” and said that the old system was “really not equitable.”
Now, Murthy said she hopes BCC can provide a space for cultural organizations to determine a system that works best for them.
“It’s really giving each type of organization the power to decide for themselves and create their own guidelines going forward to be equitable and be fair to their members,” Murthy said.
BCC will begin executive board elections in the spring semester, Meyers said. Once an executive board is selected, SGA will help train BCC. Additionally, SGA will provide BCC with operational funding for the 2024-25 academic year and help create additional chartering and monetary guidelines until the agency is expected to be fully functional by the fall 2024 semester. At this point, the agency will be able to fund the existing 43 clubs that will be under BCC and charter new ones.
Spencer Friedland (26C) is from Long Island, New York and is the Emory Wheel's Managing News Editor. He is a Philosophy, Politics and Law major and has a secondary major in Film. Spencer is also a part of the Franklin Fellows program at Emory.
