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The Syracuse University Student Association unanimously passed a bill to support the SU Graduate Student Organization’s goal of regaining its right to elect its own Board of Trustees representative during its Monday meeting. Currently, the Dean of Graduate Students possesses that right.

The bill, presented by SA President Will Treloar, outlined short and long-term initiatives advocating for GSO to regain the right to select a representative. The first section, which Treloar described as a temporary solution, will request that the dean of the graduate school considers GSO feedback when selecting their representative. In the long term, the bill requests for the university to reverse its decision to disallow GSO to select a representative.

“The hope is that they reverse the decision and stop trying to disenfranchise students from being able to elect their representatives on the most important decision-making board of the university,” Treloar said.

Treloar said he was proud to see the assembly support the GSO bill and advocate for student voices to the Board of Trustees. SA also plans to send the bill to the GSO and collaborate with them moving forward.

Treloar said SA will continue to focus on similar advocacy initiatives throughout the rest of the semester. SA has also placed its newly elected members into committees. Speaker of the Assembly Anna Ginelli said she’s looking forward to onboarding them into their new roles.

“Just because you’re new to the organization and are still figuring things out, doesn’t mean you can’t put on great, super exciting events,” Ginelli said, addressing the new members.

During the meeting, SA leaders also discussed the Sustainability Forum — a group of students dedicated to pushing the university’s sustainability goals, which they announced in spring 2023. The presentation was the Sustainability Forum’s first report of the academic year.

Eniola Festus and Izzy Kaufman, SA’s co-directors of sustainability, said the forum, formerly called the Sustainability Committee, changed its name and restructured this year to encourage involvement from the general student body. The forum is also putting a greater emphasis on social media to connect with students, Kaufman said.

“We rebuilt the committee to make it more accessible to students who aren’t in the Student Association,” Kaufman said. “We want to be a resource for all students to feel welcome to have a conversation about sustainability.”

Since making these changes to the committee, the size of the forum has tripled from 10 students to about 30, Kaufman said.

The Sustainability Forum recently hosted a clothing swap flea market during the SA Harvest Festival Friday, where students could purchase clothing items in exchange for a clothing donation or a monetary donation to Onondaga Earth Corps.

The forum is now working on planning more initiatives for the rest of the semester, Festus said, including a community compost program, the continuation of the university’s plastic phaseout goal and a meeting with the university’s auxiliary services.

Festus and Kaufman said they encourage all students to attend the forum’s weekly meetings, which occur every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Schine Student Center Room 128.

Other business:

• SA elected Lucio Maffei, Gustavo Madero and Khadiza Rahman to the University Senate with unanimous consent.
• German Nolivos, SA Vice President of Community & Government Affairs, noted the success of the first-annual Calentón Music Festival, which he said had around 450 students in attendance.
• SA will host Fall into Action — a week of student volunteer activities — in collaboration with SUNY ESF’s Alpha Xi Sigma Honor Society. The tentative date is the week of Nov. 6.

Published on October 23, 2023 at 11:54 pm

Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu