In the last six years, the Student Association at Syracuse University has not been able to fill all of its available seats for student representatives.

That’s what prompted SA President Neal Casey to make his major goal for the semester to fill all of the available representatives’ seats. Currently, SA is operating at approximately 50 percent of its possible capacity.

In late April, SA had more than 71 percent of its student representative seats filled. The School of Education, the School of Architecture and the newly named David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics had no members for a combined total of nine empty seats. The School of Information Studies had only one of three seats filled at that time.

Recruitment was the main topic of discussion at SA’s first meeting of the semester, which was held at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Maxwell Auditorium. The meeting was less than an hour long.

Casey stressed the need to represent all colleges within SU and said current members need to work to bring quality students to SA.

‘As an overall theme for the Student Association, the goal that we have decided to set is that all our seats are filled,’ Casey said.

To connect further with the SU student community, a formal program for town hall meetings has been planned for this semester, Casey said. He said the meetings will be much more guided than they have been in the past, with the goal to get more information directly from the students.

‘It’s a new vision and direction that we are headed in, to make sure we are doing things right the first time,’ Casey said.

As part of that new vision, Casey said SA will be going to residence halls and having discussions with students about issues affecting campus.

In other business:

– Junior Kevin Phu was elected as SA student liaison for the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the meeting with no one opposing. With his new title, Phu said he wants to organize mixers to bring SA closer to the ESF community. Phu also said the role of student government should be to represent all students, not certain years or majors, and that they should work to keep everyone informed.

– Casey announced that financial support from Tops Markets has been finalized to bus students from College Place and the Goldstein Student Center to Tops and the Fayetteville Plaza. Junior Taylor Carr, the Student Life Committee chair, said that buses will begin running Sept. 4.

– In another initiative to connect with the student body, SA has started a new ad program with The Daily Orange, Casey said. Every Thursday a calendar of events will be listed on the second page, he said.

rebarill@syr.edu

Published on August 29, 2011 at 12:00 pm