Claire Burch, senior Amelia Landry, Katie Tramel and OU SGA President senior Christopher Firch attend the SEC Exchange in July. The meeting took place at the University of Mississippi to discuss topics beyond athletics as an SEC school. Correction: This photo was updated at 12:25 p.m. Oct. 5 to correct the name of Claire Burch.
Editor's note: This story is featured in OU Daily's fall magazine, which will be available in print in mid-October. Check out the other featured stories at the bottom of this article.
Leadership from OU’s Student Government Association traveled to the University of Mississippi in July to meet with their counterparts from Southeastern Conference universities ahead of OU’s transition to the conference in 2024.
This meeting, called SEC Exchange, was a three-day conference giving over a hundred students in leadership the chance to discuss the ideas they have to grow, support and uplift their student bodies in the SEC.
There, OU’s student leaders shared ideas and learned how the move to the SEC will impact student life beyond athletics.
OU SGA President Christopher Firch said the main takeaways for him, which included points on growing partnerships with athletics and increasing student participation in SGA, showed how much student life can expect to grow in upcoming years.
“OU’s definitely in a great place right now, but I think there's definitely areas and room for growth,” Firch said.
Firch said one thing he loved learning about was how connected their student bodies were during athletic events. He mentioned that some SEC schools have stronger student turnout at sporting events and more established traditions.
Texas A&M, which joined the conference in 2012, has the Midnight Yell, when students gather at midnight before a football game and sing the school’s fight song. Missouri, which moved with Texas A&M, has the Zou Crew, one of NCAA basketball’s loudest student sections.
Ole Miss has the Hotty Toddy chant and its iconic tailgating scene, The Grove. Florida has its Gator Chomp and “I won’t back down,” and Mississippi State has its cowbells ringing throughout the stadium.
Firch said he wants traditions at OU, beyond the Sooner Schooner, to flourish and hopes to grow SGA’s partnership with the OU Athletics Department to meet the standards of other SEC schools.
“We have hundreds of student athletes who are at OU and they work extremely hard,” Firch said. “Imagine being a student but also honestly coming close to a full-time job being an athlete. So you know how hard they work. It's really important that we show out and support them as well.”
Firch said beyond football, he hopes to see more student turnout at other athletics, such as basketball, gymnastics and softball.
Amelia Landry, vice chair of the OU Undergraduate Student Congress, said she was heartened to learn other SEC universities were nonpartisan like OU and they had good relationships with their states’ legislatures.
“Because a lot of the SEC schools are flagship universities, … whereas some of the schools in the Big 12 aren't, I think that does create a difference in the relationship with the state government,” Landry said.
Firch said one of the main things OU’s SGA lobbies for at the local state government level is higher education funding.
“I definitely think that's something that is a disconnect between other schools, especially from bigger states. They get adequate funding,” Firch said. “Luckily, we got an increase in funding this year, but we still need to be (increasing funding) a lot further if we want to compete with a lot of similar institutions.”
Ellie Herndon, Mississippi State University’s Student Association president, said a lot of her university’s decisions are made by the state institutions of higher learning board, which she attends as a way to be involved in statewide decisions that affect the university’s student body.
While the school doesn’t have a student on the board, Herndon said the values, opinions and feedback from MSU’s Student Association are considered by the board, and they can influence decisions.
Firch said one of the ways he sees students in the SEC impacting decisions made about their campuses is by having a student on their respective Boards of Regents or the state’s equivalent.
“Some of the biggest decisions that are happening at OU are dependent on the Board of Regents,” Firch said. “Having a student be in these conversations … and providing more transparency for students and also having students get a voice at the table when a lot of these things are impacting students specifically is, I think, extremely important, imperative, and it's something we've been trying to do for a while.”
In January 2022, when Phil Albert resigned from the OU Board of Regents, Crispin South, OU’s SGA Chair at the time, along with other OU students and faculty, advocated for the appointment of a student regent to complete the remainder of Albert’s term.
In Louisiana, there is a student on the Board of Regents who represents the Council of Student Body Presidents from across the state’s universities, which includes SEC school Louisiana State University. The Council of Student Body Presidents promotes communication among the students and member schools of LSU, Southern University, University of Louisiana and Louisiana Community & Technical College, according to its website.
Mississippi State, Firch said, had an idea that provided students with a resource for cheaper textbooks.
Herndon said the Mississippi State Student Association has a partnership with the university Barnes & Noble. Each student is automatically opted into the program and pays $20 per credit hour for their textbooks, which can sometimes significantly decrease the price of textbooks. Students can also opt out of the program if they want to buy textbooks independently.
Firch said this inspired OU’s SGA to look into a collaboration with Top Hat, a platform for education software. Firch said SGA is in conversations with the provost’s office and Top Hat to make this a reality for students.
“I've learned sometimes change takes time,” Firch said. “I think patience is a big thing I've been learning.”
OU SGA President senior Christopher Firch, senior Amelia Landry, Katie Tramel and Claire Burch attend the SEC Exchange meeting in July. The meeting took place between university student leaders. Correction: This photo was updated at 12:25 p.m. Oct. 5 to correct the name of Claire Burch.
Firch said the exchange also showed him how some SEC schools see stronger voter turnout for student government elections than OU does. Auburn University, for instance, had a 34% voter turnout for their SGA elections, according to Auburn’s student government president John David Jones. Firch said OU typically has a 10% to 15% voter turnout.
Jones told OU Daily that one of the ways SGA at Auburn achieves its high voter turnout is by being as interactive throughout the year as possible.
“We try to be in high-traffic areas across campus and we have a strong social media presence,” Jones said. “I think the biggest thing is we really do try to connect with the students throughout the year. Whenever voting rolls around, we really try to make the effort (to demonstrate) that we don't show up for a week to get elected and then after that we kind of disappear. That's a huge goal for us every year.”
As president, Firch said he wants the future generation of SGA leadership to be chosen and trained as someone mindful of their role in representing the student body.
“One thing is as (SGA) president, you just sit in a lot of rooms where you’re the only student in there and it's important that when these decisions are being made … you’re just making sure that you have students’ best interest in minds regarding what they want and the experience that they want to have,” Firch said.
While Firch and Landry said OU learned from their future SEC counterparts, Jones said the exchange offered a learning opportunity for all schools. The addition of OU and Texas, he said, only created room for expansion.
“It was really unique because a lot of these SEC schools have been meeting for years and so there's some ideas that we have just accepted that every school does this, this is just status quo,” Jones said.
Jones said OU and Texas provided a fresh perspective on the ways student leadership can impact and enrich students' lives.
Landry said as OU transitions into the SEC, she sees the university population growing, thus increasing the opportunities for growth in student life.
She sees this transition as bringing about the necessity for SGA to find more ways to connect students with communities on campus, to fund more registered student organizations and to make campus a safe and comfortable environment.
As the transition increases opportunities in student life, Firch hopes the connection with other universities will help him and future OU SGA leadership in navigating future challenges.
“If I have an issue or problem or challenge, instead of having no one to talk to, I have a line of network, whether it's from Georgia or Mississippi State or (University of Texas)-Austin, that I can call and see how they do things differently and what similarities we have,” Firch said. “It helps me and gives a good way to have a new perspective on things and makes our SGA more innovative and more accessible to students.”
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This story was edited by Alexia Aston, Peggy Dodd and Karoline Leonard. Natalie Armour, Lily Battles, Mary Ann Livingood and Nikkie Aisha copy edited this story.
