The Student Government Association leadership retreat was cancelled when only seven students showed up, after a non-refundable $1,000 of student monies was spent.

The Student Senate was a sparse gathering at the last meeting as the senators discussed the lack of attendance at the SGA leadership retreat.

The retreat that was to be held at Bass Woods in Platte City, Mo was designed to stimulate camaraderie over a weekend of leadership training.

There were openings for 50 students.

Half that amount signed up, but only seven decided to attend.

Paul Shang, dean of student development, was to speak at the event.

“I was very disappointed,” Shang said. “We had a great group of presenters lined up and a very ambitious agenda and I just think it was very disappointing.”

The retreat was an open invitation to anyone involved in campus activities or interested in learning about leadership.

While all of the student senators that sent in an R.S.V.P. managed to show, 17 other potential leaders did not.

Luke Herrington, vice president of the SGA, was equally disappointed.

“My little lecture on people not showing up for the meetings was pretty important,” Herrington said. ”Because we need to make sure we have our senate full, and if not full, we need to make sure we have our senators here to make sure we are doing our best to represent the students.”

There are levels of accountability for the members of the SGA.

Student senators are only allowed to miss three meetings a term and missing an office hour counts as missing half a meeting.

“There has been a low turn out for quite some time,” Herrington said. “We can do better than this.”