Forum

Presidential Perspectives

By Rachel Berkowitz | Sep 11, 2006

Editorials featured in the Forum section are solely the opinions of their individual authors.

Another year, an actual agenda. It’s unfortunate, but previous administrations left student government with a bad rap: We’re the “do-nothing”-ers, the “do-littlest”-ers or the “do-they-do-anything-at-all?”-ers.

Times have changed. The new rule for campus: We are here to serve you. This week, we’ve already met with, counseled, or advised over a half-dozen students; topics from starting a StuCo to setting up a University Exchange Program. Have an idea? We’d love to hear from you.

But we’re more than just an information source. We want to shape this campus into something better, too. This is just a preview, but here are a couple key areas we’d like to focus on over the coming year:

Making more space available for student organizations:

We have a severe shortage of multi-purpose space on campus. Rooms that could be used for rehearsals, practices, performances, and meetings are in short supply. We plan on exploring what can be done to create more space across campus.

Student activities fee:

With your vice-president for finance, Kirk Higgins, we plan on introducing several new initiatives that will improve organizations’ financial accountability and increase monies available to student organizations without an initial increase in the activities fee.

Student leader caucuses:

With the help of sophomore Nelson Cheung, we’ll be launching a new dinner series that will bring together student leaders to discuss their campus and organizational concerns while offering them useful, concrete skill sets to help them better manage their organizations.

President’s Multi-cultural Action Campaign (PMAC):

We’ll be launching a new initiative, spearheaded by Rachelle Emard, which will work to engage multi-cultural student leaders to achieve their vision for their organizations and the campus community. The campaign will provide multi-cultural organizations’ leadership with the valuable campus-focused skill sets and logistical know-how they’ll need to achieve this vision. Interested in joining our team? Send us an e-mail.