Students attending the University of Idaho College of Law are represented by the Student Bar Association, a student government similar to ASUI and GPSA.
Jessica Greene | Argonaut
Ivar Gunderson and other Student Bar Association members stand outside the Menard Law Building on the University of Idaho campus. The Student Bar Association is the acting student government in the University of Idaho College of Law.
Associate Dean of the College of Law Jeffrey Dodge said SBA’s responsibilities vary between advocating on behalf of law students and being the liaison between students and faculty.
“They handle all of the student appointments on faculty committees, they organize social events for students, they handle the allocation of student activity fees here at the law school, to law school specific organizations and they look out for the best interests of students,” Dodge said.
Dodge serves as the SBA adviser and oversees the organization and its actions. He said SBA is successful because of its equal representation.
“It’s comprised of various members of the student body — first-year, second-year and third-year students — and has representation of our Boise branch location as well as Moscow,” Dodge said.
Dodge also said SBA is associated with the American Bar Association — a voluntary association for lawyers and law students — and receives resources and guidance through the collaboration.
Similar to other student governments, SBA has executive, legislative and judicial branches that work together to represent the campus.
Ivar Gunderson is a third-year law student who serves as SBA president. He previously served as the sergeant-at-arms as a second-year student.
Gunderson said one of the focuses of this year’s administration is promoting transparency between students and administrators.
“I think something that everyone says is to try and be transparent and communicate with the students,” Gunderson said. “Communication in general is the thing that we want to strive to excel at — inform students of issues that might impact them or be a benefit to them.”
SBA spends a lot of its time and resources supporting student organizations within the law school. Gunderson said there are about 20 organizations on campus with a multitude of interests, including the Women’s Law Caucus, Business Law Association, Multicultural Law Caucus and many more.
“Our role is to oversee those clubs,” Gunderson said. “We hold council meetings where clubs can request money for an event that they want to have and the council members will vote on those. ”
Dodge said this year’s administration is expected to work more closely with the rest of UI because SBA recently gained a seat on the faculty senate.
“The Student Bar Association is also now represented to the university faculty senate,” Dodge said. “It was the only student government body — until the end of last year — that did not have representation.”
Gunderson said a lot of faculty senate discussions involve all students at UI, not just undergraduates, and that previous SBA administrations have been adamant about getting involved.
“It was a long battle, I guess you could say,” Gunderson said. “This was something that the two prior SBA administrations had been working towards.”
As far as current action within SBA, the new members are getting used to their respective positions and necessary measures are being taken to ensure a smooth start to the semester.
“It’s the start of a new year, there’s a lot of routine activities that we are dealing with,” Gunderson said. “We’re going through club registration — all of the clubs had elections last year so they all have new officers, and we’re trying to make sure that they know what’s going on procedurally as far as requesting money and following the rules go.”
Both Dodge and Gunderson said SBA exists to serve the students of the College of Law and that each student is welcome to discuss any questions or concerns that they may have throughout the academic year.
Amber Emery can be reached at [email protected]