By J.A. Garcia
Wednesday at noon, in the president’s conference room, club presidents met with President Robert Zeigler and Emma Mendiola, interim dean of student affairs, to discuss changing the minimum club requirements.
Also in attendance were student life Director Jorge Posadas and associate Director Gil Castillo.
Club presidents included those from the Gay and Lesbian Association, Phi Theta Kappa, Connections Club, Mortuary Science Club, Nursing Club and Teaching Academy Program Peers.
This semester the office of student life raised some minimum requirements for students to be in clubs, such as a minimum of 10 students to start a club and a mandatory enrollment of six credit hours to participate.
Club presidents won their battle to reform these requirements to a minimum of five students to recognize a club, three credit hours to participate and a 2.0 minimum GPA requirement for both members and officers.
Undoubtedly, pleased by the outcome of the meeting, 23-year-old network administrative sophomore and GALA President William Brent Chandler credits the change to the strong support from Zeigler and Mendiola.
“It’s nice to know that we have the support of Dean Mendiola,” Chandler said.
Mendiola said that while not everyone always agrees, it is in the nature of this college to come together in a respectful manner to listen to the different opinions and requests to reach some decision to move forward and benefit students.
“San Antonio College believes in shared governance, and so I thought that it was really important that what we were doing at that meeting is something we do here everyday,” Mendiola said.
Zeigler said he felt the meeting was handled very professionally, and everybody left the meeting generally satisfied with the results. Chandler said the decision to raise the GPA minimum for officers will be left up to each individual organization.
In a phone interview Thursday, Mendiola confirmed the changes, adding everyone who was present at the meeting agreed.
Zeigler said the changes will be effective in the spring.
Chandler said a review of demographics will be taken in a year or possibly six months, to see if the requirements are worth keeping or if there needs to be any modifications.
Mendiola added, “Anytime you make decisions that are programmatic, you need to evaluate those decisions to see if they are working well.”