To be eligible to be a senator for the Student Government Association, you must maintain a grade point average of at least 2.5. This GPA requirement is even higher for the SGA president, who must maintain a 3.0 GPA to remain in office, or even be eligible for election.

Ryan Downs wants those requirements nixed, and he’s doing something about it by creating a petition that would remove the GPA from consideration when determining SGA eligibility.

After Downs obtained a sufficient number of signatures on the petition, the matter was forwarded to the SGA for a vote.

Supporters of the GPA requirement say it is important and necessary, a way of maintaining scholastic as well as administrative excellence.

It is not, says Krista Swahn, director of student activities and community service, to limit access to the SGA. “Any student is welcome to work with us on projects, they can come to our weekly meetings and share their ideas, which are publicized,” said Swahn. “They can come to our weekly meetings to hear about everything we are doing. Share ideas with us, bring things to our attention. It’s not that we are not letting people get involved, and I think that is where this [Anti-GPA Requirment Petition] is coming from—that we are keeping people from getting involved, and that’s not what we are doing, because we are an open association, and everybody is welcome. It’s just that very specifically, to hold these seats, there is a GPA requirement.”

Downs and his supporters, however, maintain that academic standing has little to do with one’s capabilities for other tasks, or at the very least GPA is not always indicative of governance ability.

“Philosophically, I just think…I feel like it is academic elitism,” Downs said. “I feel like people are being discriminated against based on their GPA. Secondly, I feel like a lot of times, it’s assumed that a person has a certain academic standing that they are not capable of participating. I don’t personally see how excluding students from certain activities is supposed to motivate them or help them to do better at school. … Especially with students paying Student Activity Fees. If you are on academic probation and you can’t be a senator or president that doesn’t mean you not paying student activity fees for the SGA. You still have to pay them.”