United Students Government President Terron Grant was just a normal freshman at SUNY Buffalo State. Coming out of high school, he was confident of his abilities to do well in school while at the same time having fun. Actually, having fun became more of a priority than hitting the books. In his first semester, Grant failed a class.

“I had a low GPA,” Grant said. “The next semester I retook the class and did my work and I’ve been on the Dean’s List ever since, holding a 3.5.”

Grant worked hard for his academic standard, and he’s not above making his fellow student government representatives to do the same. He explained his position while serving lunch during Bengal Pause on Thursday. He said that in order to serve the student body, a senator has the obligation to keep their academics stable.

“How can we ask them to succeed academically if we don’t ourselves?” he asked.

Administrative Vice President for Public Relations Nikita Singh agrees.

After speaking at the USG meeting on Sept. 20, Singh set up a time to talk about student government and GPA. She explained that the requirement for senators’ academics had been raised the year before taking the point average from 2.0 to 2.25.

“Last year we worked really hard to raise the GPA,” Singh said. “We decided that the senators should have an increase in the GPA requirement because we’re the student body, the face of the organization, we’re the face of the school, and the faces of everyone. So we pretty much have to be on top of our ‘A’ game, lead by example. As far as the AVPs (Administrative Vice Presidents), our GPA is 2.5.

“All of our senators had over a 2.25. It really wasn’t detrimental to our senate which was really good because we thought it could’ve hindered our numbers, our senators, because we do have to maintain a certain amount.”

USG is required to have elected or appointed by the existing senate. 40 senators to take over the responsibilities each semester.

As far as Singh could remember, the proposal was brought forth originally by Executive Vice President Idriss Abass last semester when he was Rules and Regulations Chair.

“We should have a higher requirement if we want to be this involved on campus. We should be the leaders on campus, so a 2.2. There’s nothing wrong with a 2.2, but if we’re the face and voices of students we should maintain the same academic profile to match.”

“In order to be well rounded, in order to be leaders we have to maintain our academics,” Abass said.

Abass originally sponsored the idea to raise the GPA requirements for senators to 2.5 last semester, but there was such a push back from it that he compromised. Even then it was a close.

“I thought it was going to fail,” Abass said, but didn’t say that the issue was over.

There may be a push to make the GPA requirement higher for administrative vice presidents to 2.75, and senators 2.5 in the future, though there are no concrete plans as of now.

Both Grant and Singh agreed that it was up to USG to be role models for the rest of the school.

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