On Wednesday, James Fowler will take over as SGA president after Tuesday’s inauguration, but before then, Steven Oliver showed few signs of slowing down as moving back and forth from his office to the front desk of the SGA office and made phone calls before class.

“The spring is almost seen as a time to slow down and get ready for the next year’s team, but we haven’t slowed down any,” Oliver said. “I’ve been very proud of our executive team for that.”

Last April, Oliver said he and the vice presidents came into office with detailed platforms on what they wanted to accomplish the following year. Not only were most of these items accomplished, Oliver said, but they were done while keeping in mind the students on campus.

“We’re here to listen to the concerns of students and advocate for them in any situation,” Oliver said. “It think this year, we continuously listened to those concerns and not only listened, but we turned around and made those happen.”

James Fowler, SGA president-elect, said working with Oliver taught him one of the most important aspects of the office — helping students.

“I have absolutely no hesitation saying that Steven has students’ concerns and needs on the forefront of every decision he has made,” Fowler said. “I’m very encouraged and excited about the progress that he was able to do with his administration. I was fortunate to be a part of it and to learn from Steven.”

In January, Oliver’s administration came under fire for allocating funding without required SGA senate approval.

According to the SGA Code of Laws, the senate had to approve allocations greater than $1,0000. SGA officials spent nearly $5,000 on a service trip in Pasadena.

While maintaining that the service trip was rightly a service trip, Oliver said one good thing came from the whole experience afterward: reforming of the SGA Code of Laws.

“If my administration has to be the one to work through that process and take what came out of that, then that’s alright,” he said.

Oliver said he is not worried about the incident leaving a stain on himself or his administration.

“I don’t think we’ll be remembered for this,” Oliver said. “We had a great year. We probably did more this year than administrations in the past.”

Despite these accomplishments, Oliver said what he ultimately wanted to accomplish as SGA president was establishing the organization as a personable entity that students could trust.

“We want to be a resource for students and to help them out,” Oliver said. “Our doors are always open and we want to help them out in any way we can.”

Regarding some of his programs that he is most proud of, Oliver pointed to the Spring II and Fall II programs, commonly known as the minimester program. Through these programs, students could take smaller classes throughout the semester to make up for lost hours.

“These programs are so innovative and give another option to our student to cater their academic schedules to them,” Oliver said. “It’s been a great success and we’re getting more and more students on board as we do this.”

Meg McCrummen, executive vice president for the SGA, said Oliver’s involvement with the program shows great promise for it in the near future.

“It marks Alabama as a leader in academic innovation among SEC universities,” McCrummen said. “It is very innovative and will serve the University well.”

In regard to ongoing programs that will go on past his own time in office, Oliver said there are a number of programs that will still be perfected in the next administration, including Partnership Tuscaloosa, which is a collaboration between students at the University, Stillman College and Shelton State Community College, about speaking with city officials about issues pressing the schools.

Another program currently in the works is the ASTRA System, which is an online program where students and organizations can view rooms on campus available for meetings or group times. Oliver hopes the program will be in place by the end of the sememster.

In regard to the Pasadena, Calif. incident, McCrummen said Oliver handled the situation very well by making sure that the Code of Laws would be reformed and become more transparent.

“The reforms show that Steven was able to respond to a little bit of conflict really well,” McCrummen said.

Speaking on behalf of his administrative staff, Oliver said his year in office was a good one.

“We’ve had a great year as an SGA,” Oliver said. “We couldn’t ask for a better one.”