Column by Tyler Montell

Wildcats,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a relaxing holiday break. If you were fortunate enough to make the trip to Beale Street, I’m sure you had a great time. Congratulations to the football team — Coach Brooks and his troops made history in Memphis. Three straight bowl wins is a heck of an accomplishment— something Bear Bryant didn’t even do during his tenure at UK.

Here at Student Government, we are excited to get back to work. We have a full slate of great stuff to look forward to this semester. One of our biggest projects, the Higher Education Rally in Frankfort, is coming up in less than two weeks. This rally is a great opportunity for students to get involved and see immediate results.

One of the most important priorities SG has is to represent students. I think we can best exemplify that by fighting tuition increases at the Higher Education Rally in Frankfort. Each February, we send students up to the capitol to meet with state legislators to keep your tuition down. This year, especially with the economic crisis, we know that the last thing you want to see is a rise in the rates and we strongly encourage you to get involved in the process. You can check in at the SG office in the Student Center to learn more about how to help with lobbying.

On the topic of getting engaged, SG has plenty of ways for you to help make a difference on campus. We are always looking for students who want to become more involved to join our team. We currently have a couple of vacant spots on our staff and we’d love for you to fill out an application on our Web site. SG has unlimited potential and if there are changes you would like to see on campus, we encourage you to get involved.

Another student favorite that we will continue this semester is warm-up Wednesdays. Every Wednesday morning, we will set up shop at different places around campus and give away free hot chocolate to keep you warm on the walk to class. Stay tuned to find out where we will be each week.

SG will also continue to highlight different student organizations at the basketball lotteries. It’s a great way for different clubs to recruit and get the word out about their organization. And I’m willing to bet that more and more students will be at the lotteries after Jodie Meeks dropped 54 on Tennessee last week.

We also wanted to remind all of the student organizations on campus that SG has plenty of funding left — money that you can apply for! There are over 250 clubs and organizations and our funding process allows each and every one of them to apply for SG money. It’s an easy application that can be done in 15 minutes from any computer with Internet access and gives organizations a head start on fundraising. The Appropriations and Revenue Committee does a terrific job with the allocation of funds and helping students in the application process. You can find the online application on uksga.org.

We hope you choose to get involved, whether it’s with SG or forming your own club or organization. And from everyone here at SG, we wish you the best of luck with the upcoming semester.