The Student Government Association (SGA) is the University’s representative body for undergraduate students. Members of the SGA can either be elected directly by the student body or appointed by members of the organization. As the official representative and policy-making body, the SGA and its members not only aim to advocate for the rights of students, but also to improve their experience at the University.
“The Student Government Association (SGA) at Johns Hopkins University is the primary representative body of undergraduate students. It is a student-run organization that is responsible for representing the interests of the student body to the University's administration,“ the homepage of the SGA website reads.
The SGA is a Registered Student Organization (RSO), like many official clubs or organizations on campus. The Office of Leadership Engagement & Experiential Development (LEED) oversees RSOs in matters of registration, event planning and general oversight. As an RSO, the SGA is expected to follow the expectations for organizations that LEED puts out. One of such requirements is that all RSOs must have an advisor who is a faculty or staff member of the University.
“Registered Student Organizations are required to have a faculty/staff advisor at the school where the organization is affiliated that is in good standing with the university,” LEED’s website states.
LEED additionally states that faculty advisors must abide by University policies, and make sure that the organizations they oversee do so as well.
“The prospective advisor must acknowledge and commit to upholding university policies. The university or school reserves the right to approve, remove, or reassign an advisor to a student organization at its discretion, including but not limited to circumstances in which the faculty member is no longer in good standing or is otherwise unable to fulfill the advisor requirements,“ LEED outlines in its advisor requirements.
As an RSO, SGA has multiple assigned faculty advisors. LEED, however, does not state how involved advisors have to be in their organizations, nor what their required responsibilities are besides upholding University rules.
The SGA’s Constitution, which was recently amended on Sept. 18, does not explicitly define a role for its advisor. In fact, the word “advisor” is not used in the Constitution. The Bylaws of the SGA, which were also amended on the same date as the Constitution, establish the existence of an advisor in the document’s seventh article, but do not necessarily indicate specific functions of the role.
“There shall exist SGA advisors who shall be resources when called upon by the SGA,“ one section of the bylaws states.
In addition to establishing the role’s existence, the bylaws also specify how many advisors the organization needs.
“The SGA, in conjunction with the Office of the Dean of Student Life may appoint one (1) SGA Advisor for the SGA at large, one (1) Class Council Advisor for each council, one (1) Finance advisor for the Committee on Finance, and one (1) Student Organizations Advisor for the Committee on Student Organizations,” the bylaws includes.
The seventh article in a previous edition of the bylaws, written in April 2026, features identical text, indicating that the section had been left unchanged when the SGA was drafting new bylaws. The Committee on Student Elections is the student-run organization closely linked with the SGA that oversees elections. Their constitution, like the SGA’s, also does not make any mention of advisors.
While the existence and amount of advisors for the organization are made explicit, the bylaws do not define a specific function for the advisors to perform, other than acting as a resource, a term which is not defined in the bylaws.
According to the University, in an email to The News-Letter, the advisor’s role is to make sure University policies are being enforced, while at the same time supporting the SGA members in their policy making and outreach work.
“The SGA advisor is a university staff member whose responsibilities include supporting and advising the SGA. The advisor serves in that capacity as part of their university role and provides guidance on university policies, procedures, and resources while supporting the work of SGA’s elected student leaders,” the University spokesperson wrote.
In addition, multiple members of SGA have discussed their experiences with the role of the SGA advisor in interviews with The News-Letter. One current senator, who wished to remain anonymous under the pseudonym Aiden, expressed their frustration with SGA advisor role.
“When I reach out to departments for meetings or with questions, instead of being able to talk to someone and express student concerns, someone in the department will loop in an advisor and drag out the process for several weeks or even months to schedule a meeting with all parties,” Aiden wrote in an email interview with The News-Letter.
Specifically, Aiden shared that they believe the advisor role can make communication between members of the SGA and administration more difficult, and that this function of the advisor role may be intentional.
“I see the advisor role as a way for administration and departments to avoid transparency and open dialogue with actual students. This is by no means a critique of individual advisors, but rather the role as a whole and the way it is used as a buffer between students and the people they need answers from,” Aiden wrote.
Another member of SGA, choosing to comment anonymously under the pseudonym Robin, shared generally positive experiences working with SGA advisors, in which they said that advisors would make efforts to connect with senators and support them with any questions they had.
“They get to know each [SGA member] very well and will make personal connections with each one and offer answers to any questions,” Robin shared.
Robin also referenced an informal policy where SGA representatives are reminded to cc SGA advisors into emails sent from the members to University administration to ensure visibility, emphasizing that it was not for authorization nor were any member prevented from contacting anyone. The News-Letter was unable to find any information on this in their guiding documents.
Robin clarified that advisors cannot enforce rules on communication for SGA. One SGA member from the 2020-21 Executive Board, choosing to comment under the pseudonym Parker, shared their experience working with the advisors, noting that there were no communication enforcements under their term as well in an email to The News-Letter.
“When I was involved in SGA, advisors offered to assist in facilitating discussion with University administration if we requested. If we liked, they could make the initial outreach for us when reaching out to a specific member of the University administration and cc us on the email chain. They requested that we cc them on all email communications with members of the University Administration, which we usually complied with to help facilitate a good working relationship but were not required to do,“ Parker wrote.
During the 2020-2021 term, Parker recalled how the advisors held regular meetings with the Executive Board, which at the time were required by the SGA Constitution, and spoke at GBMs.
Another current SGA representative, choosing to comment under the pseudonym Blake, commented that SGA advisors tend to communicate with administration about SGA-related matters without keeping members informed, which limits avenues for accountability.
“SGA advisors claim they act for the benefit of students and fight on SGA’s behalf when they communicate with University Administration. In reality, SGA advisors generally take SGA’s communications up the chain and will avoid copying or including SGA members in further communications, so there is no way SGA can evaluate if this is the case,” Blake said.
Since the SGA has been an official organization ever since it was established in its current form in 2008, after its renaming from Student Council, the SGA has had an advisor since its founding.
Evan Lazerowitz, who graduated from the University in 2010, provided comment about his experience with his SGA advisor, which he described as somewhat less involved than the experiences of contemporary SGA members.
“In my tenure on student government, our advisor, was very hands off and advised us from behind the scenes, letting students make informed decisions that were free from interference from the SGA advisor,” Lazerowitz wrote in an email interview to The News-Letter.
Jazzlyn Fernandez, a senior who currently serves as President of the Senate in SGA, also gave comment on her relationship with advisors, which she framed as helpful, especially in the advisors’ ability to connect students with administration and other departments within the University.
“As President of the Senate now, I have found the role of the SGA advisor to take on a new form. We ('we' being the advisor and I) meet weekly to talk about different goals that I have for the Senate, as well as how to best serve the Senators so that they can work on their own initiatives. This meeting is a space where we feel free to have different opinions, and come to understand the different views that we have to best serve the Senate, as well as the Johns Hopkins undergraduate student body. The SGA advisor gives guidance to any Senator or Executive member who requests it, including myself, and provides connections to different administrative bodies so that we may be able to collaborate for the benefit of all students,” Fernandez wrote.
Honora Muratori is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter and Executive Secretary for SGA. She was not involved in the reporting or writing of this article.
Katherine Zhu is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter and a Student Justice in the Judiciary Board for SGA. She was not involved in the reporting or writing of this article.
