Georgia Southern’s Student Government Association (SGA) has announced that it is consolidating with East Georgia State’s SGA, as a result of the consolidation of the two colleges, meaning that East Georgia State students would be represented in SGA meetings on the Statesboro campus.

On April 8, students were sent an email by Georgia Southern President Kyle Marreo that Chancellor Sonny Perdue of the University System of Georgia (USG) would propose a consolidation of Georgia Southern University and East Georgia State College. 

The proposed consolidation was approved by the Board of Regents of the USG on April 15, meaning that the next step would be another vote of approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, which is still pending.

With these events in mind, current SGA President Shaheim Johnson sent out a press release on April 21, saying that he had begun meeting with the East Georgia State SGA to discuss their consolidation of the two organizations, to provide a voice across all campuses.

“The main goal is focusing on ensuring that the students’ voices on East Georgia’s campus are continued to be heard and continue to be advocated for,” said Johnson. “We want to keep a consistent and steady flow of operations for them, and we want to ensure that there’s no interruptions at all when it comes to both student governments coming together to become one, with a very similar process to what we did with Armstrong State.”

Johnson also said that they would be adding an Associate VP role as well as a Director of Student Engagement role on the East Georgia campus, as well as incorporating the senator roles into the Georgia Southern Senate. He also added that SGA Executives would be traveling to East Georgia State every few weeks to oversee SGA operations, similar to the procedures done at the Armstrong campus.

When asked about a timeline for the consolidation, Johnson estimated that the process would most likely take anywhere from 1-2 years for the consolidation to be complete, and said that students would most likely notice effects of the merger by August 2026.  

“I would say I’m really excited about the endless possibilities for both the futures of both the future students and current students of East Georgia and Georgia Southern,” Johnson said regarding his opinion on the merger. “We’re now going to see a lot more resources pumped into East Georgia and we can possibly see something a lot bigger for both campuses in the future.”

If students have any more questions about the consolidation of Georgia Southern and East Georgia State, they can go to this website and/or email the East Georgia SGA President and/or Georgia Southern’s SGA President.