During Student Association’s second-to-last meeting of the semester, the assembly discussed several initiatives related to self-segregation and diversity on campus.

Student Engagement Committee Chair Sawyer Cresap gave a report on her committee’s initiatives this semester, including a survey about self-segregation and diversity on campus. The survey showed that students do believe self-segregation is an issue on campus. The committee is now working on ways to address this issue and make students more aware of diversity, Cresap said.

“Students don’t only believe that self-segregation exists on campus, but they believe that it’s a problem,” she said. “There was an overwhelming response for the need for dialogue.”

The committee is currently working with the Dean’s Team, a group of student advisers in the College of Arts and Sciences, to add a discussion on diversity issues to the freshman forum classes, Cresap said. Another way the committee is working on this issue is through the #ITooAmSyracuse campaign, which kicked off Friday afternoon on the Quad. The campaign features students holding a sign saying how they represent diversity and the hashtag #ITooAmSyracuse.

Also in her report, Cresap noted that the Student Engagement Committee has become more focused on surveys and data this semester. Still, Cresap said, SA needs a new way to survey the student body and learn about relevant issues. In the future, the committee hopes to work with the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment to conduct surveys that are more representative of the student body and that people will take seriously, she said.

“If you go through Facebook, yeah it gets you good information but people will always question your methodology,” Cresap said. “So if we work with an already established body, it will take the pressure off all of us.”

Alumni Board Elections

The election for the Class of 2017 seat on the Alumni Board was tabled until next week after four rounds of ballots failed to produce a candidate with the required two-thirds of assembly votes. The position, which the representative will hold for the next three years, involves attending alumni board meetings and interacting with alumni in various ways, both on and off campus.

Recorder Malik Evans, Martin J. Whitman School of Management Representative Katie Hochrein, College of Arts and Sciences Representative Jack Harding and College of Visual and Performing Arts Representative Eric Evangelista all ran for the seat.

All four candidates passed through the initial qualifying round of ballots. After the second round of ballots, no candidate received the required two-thirds vote and the field was narrowed down to Harding and Hochrein, who received the most votes. Neither Harding nor Hochrein received the required votes in the next two rounds of voting and the assembly voted to table the election until next week.

Other business discussed:

• President Boris Gresely announced that the Division of Academic Affairs will now pay one-third of the cost of the newspaper readership program. The approximately $80,000 program, which provides free New York Times and USA Today newspapers to students, was previously paid for only by SA and the Division of Student Affairs.
• During his president’s report, Gresely announced that he will be a member of the university committee that’s looking into the issue of fossil fuel divestment on campus. SA and the University Senate have both passed resolutions supporting the divestment of fossil fuels.

Published on April 22, 2014 at 1:01 am

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta