When the 58th Student Association began in January, members came in with a lot of big goals. But they had to start small — like with office furniture.

Shortly after starting their term, members decided to rearrange the furniture in the SA offices to make the space more open and welcoming.It’s a subtle modification, but one that represents the string of small yet significant changes 58th session members have implemented this semester.

“I wanted to make sure that the legwork was being done this semester and I think it has been and I feel very confident moving forward,” said Boris Gresely, SA president.

Gresely ran for president on a three-part plan to reform, reconnect and redirect SA. The spring 2014 semester is the reform stage and has been marked by internal changes most outsiders wouldn’t notice. The Board of Elections and Membership and the Public Relations Committee have been restructured. A committee was created to examine SA’s operating budget. Next semester, there will be a new SA website and logo.

SA is also trying to narrow its outward focus, said SA Vice President Daniela Lopez. In the past, members had worked on many individual initiatives — now, each committee works together on a few main initiatives, Lopez said. Besides helping SA narrow its focus, this approach also leads to better teamwork among members, she said.

“We’re only working on three or four initiatives in every committee so you’re pretty much forced in a way to work with each other and get to know each other,” she said.

Gresely and Lopez have also tried to get to know the individual assembly members. Gresely wasn’t active in the 57th session, so he met individually with each SA member at the beginning of this semester. But Gresely said he really started to see members buy into his ideas after the assembly retreat in March.

“A bunch of them came up to me and said, ‘You know Boris, thank you very much. I didn’t vote for you as president but I’m glad that you are president,’” he said. “I was very happy that they saw that, because I’m doing this because I really care.”

While this semester saw a lot of internal changes, Gresely said he’s excited to start the reconnect phase of his plan next fall. The centerpiece of this phase is a student affairs summit, which will bring together student leaders from campus organizations to discuss issues affecting their communities.

For now, though, Gresely continues to focus on the smaller stuff. The biggest lessons he’s learned this semester are “remember to eat, remember to sleep,” he said, only half-joking. But overall, Gresely said he’s happy with the groundwork this semester has laid for the next two.

“What I always tell people is, it’s not a race, it’s a marathon, right?” he said. “So easy does it, easy does it.”

Student Life

Most of the Student Life Committee’s work this semester centered on one initiative: changing the policy that prohibits transfer students from rushing during their first semester on campus.

The committee got the idea for the initiative after conducting a survey of transfer students in Sky Halls. It learned that many students were unhappy with their housing and felt disconnected from campus. The committee saw changing the rush policy as a way to help remedy this and eventually gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition supporting the change.

Aysha Seedat, chair of the committee, met with the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs last week to present the petition. FASA was initially against the idea but later agreed to discuss the issue at its upcoming retreat, Seedat said. The committee is planning to bring a resolution supporting the change before the assembly. It is also considering talking to other administrators in the Division of Student Affairs, Seedat said.

To help transfer students find alternatives to Sky Halls, the committee has also created a transfer student newsletter with information about off-campus housing options, Seedat said.

Academic Affairs

The Academic Affairs Committee has been focusing on four main initiatives this semester, said Federico Vicente, chair of the committee. The initiatives are: extending library hours, making teacher evaluations more helpful to students, creating library kiosks and creating a multi-language writing center.

The committee has successfully gotten library hours extended, Vicente said. Administrators have agreed to keep the Life Sciences Building open until 2 a.m. during finals week. Carnegie Library will have extended hours during finals week, as well.

The other three initiatives are more long-term, Vicente said. For teacher evaluations, the committee would eventually like to create a system that would allow students to see past evaluations, similar to Ratemyprofessor.com, but specifically for SU, he said.

The library kiosk initiative would place kiosks near the entrance of the library, making it easier for students to reserve books, study spaces and team rooms.

Internet and Technology Services supports the initiative, Vicente said, and the committee is currently working on setting up a meeting with library administrators to get their thoughts on the idea.

The committee has been focusing most on the multi-language writing center, which would help students with essays they write for foreign language classes, Vicente said. Committee members are currently meeting with department heads about the idea and Vicente said he hopes to complete the initiative by the middle of next semester.

Student Engagement

This semester, the Student Engagement Committee has been focusing more on surveys and data. The committee has conducted two surveys: one internal survey to assess recent changes within SA and one campus survey on self-segregation, said Sawyer Cresap, chair of the committee. The internal survey allowed the committee to plan for the next few semesters, she said.

The self-segregation and diversity survey, the committee’s other main initiative, got about 170 responses from students living on campus and showed that students believe self-segregation is an issue, Cresap said.

To address this issue, committee members have been meeting with multi-cultural groups on campus. They hope to add a class to freshman forum that specifically addresses diversity issues, Cresap said.

The committee is also working on a survey to examine interest in the SU football team, Cresap said. The survey will explore whether SU should implement an athletics fee that would cover the cost of student season tickets to football, basketball and lacrosse games for less than they pay now, she said.

Next semester the committee will focus on making students aware of campus diversity, Cresap said. The committee has started making a series of videos about diversity that they hope to release next fall, she added.

Public Relations

The Public Relations Committee’s goal this semester has been to “reach out to students in a different way than SA ever has before,” said Anna Giles, chair of the committee. To do this, the committee has posted photos on Facebook about committee initiatives and created a newsletter with SA updates, Giles said.

The PR Committee has also been restructured for a clearer chain of command, including adding a press secretary to deal directly with student media, Giles said. In addition, Giles has implemented a “TV News structure” in the committee so members have specializations in certain SA topics. This diversifies the SA information posted on social media, she said.

Going forward, Giles hopes to solidify the changes to the committee and expand SA’s social media reach to LinkedIn and YouTube. The new website launching next semester will also have a subscription service where students can sign up to get weekly SA newsletters and a blog, she said.

Board of Elections and Membership

The Board of Elections and Membership has also been restructured this semester, said Adrianna Kam, chair of the committee. Kam became chair of the committee in February and immediately sorted through applications and set up elections, she said.

As a result, the assembly is not as big as it has been in the past, but Kam said the committee has recruited throughout the semester and many schools and colleges have achieved full representation. The committee has also tried to help new members integrate better into SA by sending them a PowerPoint with more details about the organization, Kam said.

Going forward, Kam said she wants to better define BEM’s role within SA. Currently, there are usually elections every two weeks. These elections tend to take up most of the meeting, sometimes lasting as long as two hours, she said.

To fix this, Kam plans to hold only two elections next semester. The time during meetings usually reserved for elections will instead be used for half-hour member training sessions, she said.

Published on April 23, 2014 at 2:52 am

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta