The Student Association members devoted the majority of their meeting Monday to self-reflection and evaluation of their role as a campus organization and how they can better serve the university community.

‘Out of all the assemblies I’ve worked with, this one basically has the potential to improve SA,’ said Andrew Thomson, former SA president. ‘There’s young blood, they care deeply and there’s a lot of drive and initiative.’

The assembly began a brainstorming session about why the members decided to join the assembly, which included reasons such as helping to make change on campus, linking student groups and learning more about the university.

‘Self-reflection is always a good thing,’ said Drew Lederman, SA president. ‘I want what the majority of the assembly wants, trying to make ourselves more visible and that we’re the people that students come to if they need anything.’

The assembly also discussed some of SA’s major problems, including lack of general student awareness of the organization, empty assembly member seats and a representative structure based on schools, not student organizations.

But in order to make any changes, SA needs to move on from just discussing its problems and initiate action, Thompson said.

‘The same ideas came up basically summarizing those of the previous three years,’ Thompson said. ‘But they’re definitely on the right track.’

The assembly raised ideas such as an information board of activities and events, requiring a member of each student organization to attend at least one SA meeting a month, attend student organization meetings and clarify the Web site.

In other SA news:

The budget proposal process has been pushed back to an unknown date, because the dates for next fall’s Homecoming have not yet been set, said Maggie Mizstal, SA comptroller. Once those dates are established, and all of the room allocations for the event are made, then SA will know what dates to watch for in student organizations budgets.

N The SA newsletter, The Advocate, will be available next week.

N The proposal of the details for an SA freshman leadership program, tentatively titled Orangeseeds, for about 50 to 60 incoming freshmen is being put together.

Published on March 15, 2004 at 12:00 pm