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David Bruen and Darnelle Stinfort, president and vice president of Syracuse University’s Student Association, created a number of campaign promises which they pursued this fall semester.

This semester, the SA has passed measures that include free menstrual products, expansion of student representation in the assembly, commitments to becoming carbon neutral, addressing student homelessness and food insecurity and a focus on reforming the university’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility plan.

Bruen and Stinfort did not accomplish some of their other promises, including increasing student turnout in SA elections, free printing for students and third party reviews of DPS, among other campaign promises.

Although the pair has not achieved all they promised, they affirmed in their “state of the student body” address that there is still a lot of work to be done.

Community and inclusivity

Bruen and Stinfort promised to fight for SU to become carbon neutral by 2026 and for SA to be carbon neutral by May 2022 as part of their “Green New Deal for Syracuse University”. Becoming carbon neutral essentially means making the university’s net-output of carbon dioxide negligible.

During the final SA meeting on Monday, Bruen announced a $500 investment to offset the SA carbon footprint to make the association carbon negative. The SA is currently working on reaching out to organizations for the $500 to be invested in planting trees, Bruen said.

Although SA failed to reach the 15% turnout target among students in an election held in the fall semester, it had the highest freshman members in a long time, Bruen said during the state of the student body meeting. Cuse Otto Vote is an SA initiative that aims to increase civic engagement and participation among SU and SUNY-ESF students. Bruen and Stinfort said they are hopeful that the unique populations bill will help with representation and increase student engagement in elections.

In September, SA passed a bill to encourage SU’s administration to implement training and prevention services across campus. In October, the association passed another bill which officially acknowledged Indigenous Peoples’ Day for the first time in SA history.

The association also heavily debated and criticized the university’s DEIA plan. These efforts led SA to set up an ad-hoc committee to review the plan and hold a meeting at 119 Euclid Ave. for students to voice their frustrations with the plan.

SA member Adia Santos said the largest project SA worked on this semester was its feedback of the DEIA plan.

“SA dedicated a really commendable amount of time getting as much student feedback as possible while also completing a comprehensive, detailed and thorough document to send back to (the administration),” Santos said.

Financial accessibility

One of the main campaign promises was advocating for a fixed tuition program in which students will pay a consistent amount of tuition every semester during their years at SU. This policy was pursued after the university’s continued increase of the cost of tuition in recent years.

This semester was the first to implement free laundry in all SU dorms, which was another one of Bruen and Stinfort’s campaign promises. Free printing is still a campaign promise SA has yet to address.

Other important issues for SA are student housing and food insecurity. SA has worked to include questions about housing and food insecurity on the Orange Pulse Survey, a campus-wide survey with a range of questions to give the university a better understanding of how their students are affected by such issues.

Bruen also said in the final meeting that the SA is planning to offer support to the Hendricks Chapel and South Campus food pantries by covering operating costs of the pantries so they can get more food and other toiletries.

Health and safety

This semester, SA passed a bill allocating $56,925 to make menstrual hygiene products free for all students, which will be implemented in the spring semester. Bruen and Stinfort campaigned for this policy, and both have stated they were proud to pass this bill this year.

“The thing that really changed this semester for me was when we made some real progress on the menstrual products. It became clear that we could do it,” Bruen said. “It was something I wasn’t sure that we could get done this year, not to the level we are doing it, but that happened and I really started to reflect and realize through all of the chaos and chaffe of this year, we actually have done a lot.”

Other promises made relating to health and safety are yet to be achieved. Bruen and Stinfort said in their final meeting that there’s a lot to work on when it comes to health and safety, such as publishing the status of bias training completed by Department of Public Safety officers, hiring a new DPS chief and more third party reviews of the department.

Academic advancements

Bruen and Stinfort weren’t able to achieve many of their campaign promises for academic advancements this semester, but they said SA is making plans to allocate $4,000 to create a textbook voucher program, which would help students cover textbook costs. It’s also planning to work with the SU Campus Store to make textbooks cheaper for low-income students.

Bruen and Stinfort also passed a bill advocating for a permanent test-optional policy to make SU more inclusive.

“When Darnelle and I were campaigning one of our campaign values, which we felt very adamant about, was the big ideas and the little ideas. This was to essentially say that, no idea was too small and no idea wasn’t worth fighting for,” Bruen said. “Regardless of how big and popular some things may be, we will still fight for those, but that should cloud any other important priorities for students that sorely need attention. That has been a guiding value as we’ve led this semester and will continue to be.”

Published on December 12, 2021 at 9:25 pm

Contact Danis: dwcammet@syr.edu