Campus segregation, diversity, sustainability, poor faculty advising and a lack of communication are among the spectrum of issues a newly elected crop of student representatives hopes to tackle.

Five students hailing from four colleges were approved to serve as representatives in the Student Association’s general assembly, and two were selected to serve on the University Senate during SA’s meeting Monday in Syracuse University’s Maxwell Auditorium at 7:30 p.m.

School of Education

Sophomore inclusive education majors Jeniea Howard and Jasmine Gilliam approached the front of Maxwell Auditorium for the night’s first election. Finishing one another’s sentences and using the pronouns “we” and “us” to describe the pair’s shared concern about campus segregation and diversity in their initial round of introductions, Howard and Gilliam made it difficult for voting representatives to differentiate the two in the only contested election of the night.

“It was very hard for me to separate the two,” said Emily Ballard, chair of the Board of Elections and Membership, who conducted interviews with all of the candidates before they appeared in front of the assembly.

After being called into the auditorium for a round of questioning without Howard, Gilliam managed to secure the final seat within the School of Education, making it the third college — along with the School of Architecture and the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science  — with full SA representation. Among Gilliam’s priorities are addressing campus segregation and gaining more exposure for the school.

College of Arts and Sciences

One major gripe dominated Dimitrios Kostakis’ pitch to the assembly — advising.

“Today was the fifth time my adviser cancelled my meeting and they showed no interest in rescheduling a meeting,” the sophomore mathematics major said.

Kostakis feels Arts and Sciences students are neglected, with advisers canceling meetings and upper administration unaware of the issue. Assembly members expressed some concern about his more soft-spoken nature, but eventually felt his ability to represent Arts and Sciences students outweighed that.

Kostakis was voted into the assembly alongside Nia Boles, a psychology and neuroscience student, who named campus segregation and working with public schools to stem bullying as issues she would like to address.

Boles said it’s important for her to give voice to a college with students who are teeming with ideas on how to better the campus.

“We have a lot of words, and those words never go outside the room they’re spoken in,” Boles said.

State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry

In keeping with a semester that’s seen the largest number of filled ESF seats, SU’s neighboring campus is two students away from full representation after Monday’s election of sophomore Dominic Delaney.

Continuing to bridge the divide between the two campuses and exposing more ESF students to opportunities available at SU — such as environmental clubs and broomball — are among his chief priorities. Delaney is also a proponent of improving sustainability practices on both campuses.

ESF representatives already in SA vouched for Delaney, citing his membership and recruitment work with ESF’s governing branch, the University Student Association.

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

The addition of freshman broadcast journalism major Jihun Han to the general assembly makes Newhouse one representative short of reaching full representation.

As a representative, Han said he’d like to see the development of a ticket system to manage the number of attendees at large-scale Newhouse events. Additionally, except for a handful of well-known majors within the college, such as broadcast journalism and television, radio and film, Han said there’s a general lack of knowledge within the college about all of the available academic pursuits.

“Even I don’t know what all the majors in Newhouse are,” he said.

University Senate

Three students — Sawyer Cresap, Niall Harding and Zachary Freedman — ran for Senate seats.

Assembly members decided to package the vote for Cresap, a sophomore political science major, and Harding, also a political science major, assigning them both to Senate seats. With her role in helping to revive the Undergraduates for Better Education organization at SU, Cresap said the Senate seat would provide her access to key senior university figures. Harding said he’d like to zero in on the financial arm of the Senate to address tuition and financial aid concerns.

Zachary Freedman, a sophomore political science major, was turned down by the assembly for his Senate bid. Assembly representatives felt his concerns about student life — such as campus food and residence hall cleanliness — were better suited for SA.

Although 22 of 27 Senate seats remain open after Monday’s vote, some assembly members said it was important to consider personal attributes when voting, and not be wholly concerned with filling empty seats.

“I do understand there are a lot of seats available … but I think it’s important to remember he as an individual may not be best for the University Senate,” said Chief of Staff PJ Alampi.

Other business discussed:

• Christian Harley and Tao Lu, members of the Finance Board, have resigned, citing time constraints, leaving the board that deliberates on special programming funding with five members and five available seats. As of press time, it is not known which members resigned.
• The first student organization, the African Student Union, to apply to move into a new financial tier under SA’s newly adopted point system was denied.
• SA President Allie Curtis is preparing to meet with the Board of Trustees in Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks.
• A bill modifying the assembly’s demerit system, introduced earlier this month by Parliamentarian Ben Jones, was approved.

Published on March 26, 2013 at 1:57 am

Contact Debbie: dbtruong@syr.edu | @debbietruong