SGA President Jay Taylor has spent the summer in Burlington working on ways to improve SGA programs. The Cynic sat down with Taylor to see what students should expect from the SGA this year.
What are the four most important things SGA has worked on over the summer?
Taylor: 1. “The Lynx”
It is a web-based data management system. Basically, every student will have an account and can view the page of each club for recruitment purposes. It will eventually replace the need for listservs.
Elections will be hosted on this and it will be most secure. We’ve done online elections before but they haven’t been secure. They are also paper-free so we are pretty excited about that.
At the end of your four years you can print out an involvement transcript. Not only will you have your involvement transcript, it will say what you did out of class while you were in college. I certainly view this as a major step forward but also a major step to the present. We spent a lot of time researching this. The first time we use it will be for the elections on Sept. 10.
The Lynx system will be live no later than Sept. 10.
2. Student Organization Workshop.
During the student organization workshop we will cover hazing policies. Hazing has never really been an issue with us, but we have never really addressed it either. Athletics does it and Greek life does it. There will also be brief training on the Lynx system.
There will be sessions on recruitment, programming, advertising, the Davis Center and risk management, which is the first time we have done anything like this.
3. Policy Changes
A couple of policies that have been edited over the summer.
I have asked to add a flow chart, a diagram of what happens when you get in trouble to guide students through that process.
Temporary Structures Policy: someone from University Legal Services, Tom Gustafson, will get together to figure out now what policy will work. There are a few things that the University can’t and won’t budge on.
4. Bring Candidates to Campus
We want to bring as many local and statewide. Students will be informed when the candidate will come to campus. Voter registration will be available at front desk during regular business hours. Chris Shakett and Mandy Frank have been working to get candidates to come to campus, beyond getting candidates to campus and getting students voting.
What new clubs and organizations should students expect to see on campus this semester?
There are a few that are brand new from last spring, there a couple that are really cool, such as club wrestling and campus kitchens. Basically they take food scraps and combine them with ingredients that they buy, mostly food scraps from our dining halls and make meals with them as opposed to sending them to compost.
Can students expect any big changes in the future?
Taylor: Yes. This is going to be an interesting year for the meal plan. The meal plan over the past several years has not been enough to sustain the services that students usually receive. Hours in Marche will be extended.
I believe that the Davis Center will be the only food service option open on Sundays other than residential dining halls. This meal plan issue will have to be figured out this year. For students to pay more than they did last year and get less services tells me that money is not being used effectively and we will need to find a new plan to do so.
What upcoming events should students be looking out for?
Taylor: I would love to see people run for first year election. Starting [Friday, Aug. 29], students can sign out and return their petitions for first year election. Contact [email protected] for more information.
