New Student Government Sets Goals

Students should be provided safe passage through the Brookland neighborhood at night and major campus events should be promoted in a way that attracts the student body, concluded the Student Association General Assembly’s Student Life committee (SAGA) at their meeting on Tuesday.

Representatives from every class met in Hannan Hall to discuss their goals and purposes. Among their plans was a more complete system for evaluating resident assistants and ministers on behalf of the student body.

“I don’t think they should be a police force, but if there are 50 students on a floor and 40 of them have been written up and they weren’t involved in something, that’s not right,” said Courtney Martin, Department of Public Safety and facilities and maintenance liaison.

The board concluded that most problems with dining services, when presented to University contractor Aramark, have been remedied swiftly, thanks to the Dining Services Advisory Board, a vestige of the defunct University Student Government, which was established to keep communications open with the people cooking food for University students.

Many students have complained about a lack of study areas on campus, partially due to a crackdown on dorm visitation hours. New rules limit weekday visitors to midnight, whether they are studying or partying. Several members argued for pushing the visitation hours back, while some thought that Mullen Library and other school specific libraries, such as Physics in Hannan and Nursing in Gowan, should expand their hours.

“Ideally I’d like to remove visitation hours, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, so we have to find a way to make it easier to study that administration will accept,” said Ryan Winn, student life committee chair.

Representatives also wished to make students’, who are appearing before the disciplinary hearing board, rights public. “I know a lot of students who have showed up, and just got railroaded, because they just didn’t know what was going on,” said Winn.

Afifeh Alaween, speaker of SAGA, reported that they had made progress with David Best, assistant director of Judicial Affairs and Ethical Development, on a systematic way to inform the accused.
“In a court, at least you have someone on your side, and maybe we can get at least some information out,” said Winn.

The dropped program known as Safe Rides is a priority for this year’s representatives, as well. In the past, students were given free transportation by student driven University vans. The vans would have stops in the Brookland community, though not on the 12th Street corridor and not at The Cloisters. Reports of students selling beer out of the vans, and using them as strictly bar and party transportation led to the programs disbandment. “I’m going to put this low on the list, but I do think that it is not good students are walking around in Brookland,” said Winn. “Why don’t we just tell people to not be stupid, use their brains and not walk around alone,” said Nick Adamescu, a representative on SAGA.

Student reps did not make clear which goals were long term and which were short term.

- Ryan J. Reilly contributed to this report

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