The Syracuse University Student Association held its first meeting of the 53rd session Monday night, with new member elections, talk of improvement and goals to be fulfilled in 2009.

Though the question was raised of how SA representatives would accomplish what they plan this session, an exact solution to the group’s problems remained unfinished in Maxwell Auditorium.

Erik Bortz, SA’s vice president and a freshman political science major, said, ‘some of the tasks we face are daunting.’

Newly appointed members to the assembly made many promises to change SA, what they consider is an organization unknown or misunderstood by students on campus.

‘I look at SA as something that can be improved,’ Bortz said.

With the struggling economy, revising the financial and budgeting process was a priority mentioned by most of the members who spoke. SA President Larry Seivert spoke about last semester’s budgeting process, and how many people were unhappy with it. He said SA is researching different schools to see how they use the budgeting process, and that it will cooperate with student organizations to revise their own budgeting procedures. Revisions are due before the end of March.

Lily Mei, SA’s comptroller, said there is $60,000 remaining for special programming. This number was compiled by SA’s former comptroller, Sacha Forgenie. Mei said a more exact figure will be announced when technological difficulties are fixed within the organization.

Raising the student activity fee also aroused debate between several members during the meeting after Robel Yemiru, who was voted to be the new parliamentarian, said he supports increasing the fee.

Seivert once again highlighted his long-standing plans for the coming session.’Students are the life-blood of this university,’ said Seivert, as he mentioned the several aspects of student life he wants to change during his presidency.

These plans include holding town hall meetings in residence halls to better connect students with SA, increasing scholarships and revising the financial process, creating a fan bus to take students to away SU athletic games, and giving students free transportation to get home.

Both Bortz and Seivert said they also plan to reach out to the community. Bortz said he wants to implement community projects that get students connected with the off-campus society.

The majority of Monday night’s meeting consisted of voting by the assembly for newly elected positions. SA members also mentioned that their newly updated Web site should be open to the public this week.

With the many promises given by elected officials, some members of SA and the audience questioned those on stage to confirm that they would act on their word. As one SA member put it, the assembly can’t afford to have any ‘seat-warmers.’

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on January 12, 2009 at 12:00 pm