The Student Assembly Senate Outreach Committee met on Wednesday night to plan upcoming events geared toward building a stronger connection between SA members and the student body. The committee was created by the SA last year to improve the availability of SA members to the students.
“We really want to be connected with the student body,” Senate Outreach Chairwoman Sen. Brittany Fallon ’11 said.
This year, the committee has several items on its agenda, including a student-administrator mixer in the spring and a Charter Day bash, and the upstart of a blog written by SA members.
“We want it to be another way for students to know what happens outside of SA meetings,” Sen. Sarah Rojas ’10 said.
The committee has been planning the upcoming “What SA Can Do for You” night, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 30. Students will be able to meet their SA representatives, along with the new SA vice president. Recently elected freshman SA members will spend time talking with students.
“It’s a ‘come and meet your senators’ event,” Fallon said. “[It should be] casual. We don’t want this to be pretentious.”
While the reception is open to all students, the committee is also reaching out to the student leaders of campus organizations in order to address clubs’ financial concerns and explain how the SA can provide funding. Fallon said that many organizations do not know that the SA can sometimes fund up to 100 percent of a club’s expenses.
“We’re going to be contacting student organizations directly and asking for their input, letting them know who we are, what we can do, and why they should let us help them,” Fallon said later in an e-mail to the senate.
Committee members are hoping the meet-and-greet will become a tradition at the start of every school year.
“It’s a way to start a dialogue with the people,” Rojas said.
According to Sen. Walter McClean ’09, the committee started working on the “What SA Can Do for You” night over the summer and it was not planned in response to recent criticisms of the SA.
Nonetheless, the senators acknowledged that the event has become even more important in light of the ongoing SA investigation.
“The event has most certainly taken on new meaning, since there is clearly a heightened need for SA outreach,” McClean said in a later e-mail.