Despite planning a new awareness week since November, SGA has decided to cancel the events.
Executive president Ty Kelley said SGA planned to host an awareness, during which, each day, a topic trending in society would be highlighted, including mental health awareness, cultural awareness and sexual assault awareness. Each day was planned to have relevant Chapel speakers alongside organizations pertaining to each topic.
Because Christmas break cut into planning time, and their desire to give proper attention to each subject, SGA decided to cancel awareness week, Kelley said.
“We didn’t want to diminish any of the topics, so in order to preserve the importance of each one, we decided against hosting the event because it was going to be so soon,” Kelley said. “To come back from break and try to find qualified speakers that were going to speak into the topic in a Christlike manner and actually impact students, we didn’t want to rush that process.”
Kelley said administration agreed with the decision.
“We don’t currently have any plans to continue awareness week because the time frame of the spring semester, especially with Sing Song and freshman pledging,” Kelley said. “We figured it would be better for us to let another cabinet take it on.”
SGA is still planning a partnership with the online service, TimelyMD, which just launched counseling services online 24/7. It was supposed to be part of awareness week, but Kelley said they still wanted a mental health awareness day, tentatively before Sing Song.
“It’s a tangible way that students can get help immediately,” Kelley said.
Kelley also said when they were making the decision to cancel, they believed that all of the bases were covered.
The Title IX office hosts events and speakers during Sexual Assault Awareness month in April, the Office of Multicultural Affairs is hosting and sponsoring events during Black History Month in February and the International Justice Mission hosts Justice Week toward the end of February.
“A lot of organizations on campus are already spearheading this, and we didn’t want to interfere with the work that they were already doing,” Kelley said.
