your Student Union Blog

As we approach the beginning of what promises to be a very exhilarating
school year, we would like to update you on what Student Union (your
undergraduate student government) has been doing this summer and how we’re
putting your $2.1 million to use in this upcoming year.

We have lots of exciting updates - some are things that we mentioned to you
during campaigning while others were projects that SU has been working on
for years.

First, last spring Student Union put significant pressure on Assembly Series
(the campus-wide speaker series) to shift away from the 11AM time slot to
one that is more suitable to students. In addition, we pushed for better
recognized speakers that would appeal to students on a larger scale. To do
this, Student Union created its own speaker series (initially funded by
$40,000).

We are very excited to let you know that Assembly Series has begun to take
its first steps in shifting away from the 11AM time slot starting with its
very first speaker (Maya Lin, the creator of the Vietnam War Memorial, Sept.
6 at 7:30PM).

Other notable speakers that we feel will raise the level of excitement and
discourse on this campus are Cory Booker (Mayor of Newark, NJ and rising
star in the Democratic Party, Sept. 14 at 4PM), Alan Lightman (writer of the
Freshman Reading Program’s “Einstein’s Dreams”, Sept. 19 at 4PM), and Kal
Penn (star of “The Namesake” and Kumar in “Harold and Kumar go to White
Castle”, Oct. 25th at 4PM).

Student Union has played a significant role in advocating for these more
student-friendly times knowing that they will work for a greater amount of
students than the 11AM time slot. In addition, the Assembly Series has done
a great job of providing more well-known, innovative, and relevant speakers
to our undergraduate population. Through our own SU Speaker Series, we have
also managed to book Ken Paulson, the editor of USA Today, who will be here
on April 2nd from 4-5PM.

On another exciting note, we are happy to announce that due to significant
Student Union efforts over the past three years, this Fall students will be
greeted with a comprehensive technology package that will include wireless
in all residential areas (including dorms!), increased levels of minimum
bandwidth, and cable TV access from every room. We will all also benefit
from the addition of an emergency text message service.

Because safety and security are always important issues on campus, we want
to make you aware that in the Fall you will also see the presence of Closed
Circuit Television Cameras in various places around campus. The policy can
be found here: http://police.wustl.edu/CCTV%20Policy.htm . Thw installation
is scheduled to be complete by August 15th.

The final Student Union initiative we wanted to highlight in this e-mail is
the Student Union Readership Program and updates we’ve made to the program.
In 2004, SU representatives decided that in order to burst the WU bubble on
a more consistent basis, SU should buy significant amounts of newspapers and
distribute them across campus. This evolved into the SU Readership Program,
which boasts daily copies of the New York Times, USA Today, and St. Louis
Post-Dispatch on open distribution stands in Mallinckrodt Center, Whispers,
Holmes, Simon Hall, Lab Sci, Bear’s Den, and the Village. This year, we have
decided to increase funding of the program from $43,000 to $52,000 due to a
significant increase in demand for the papers. In addition, we are shifting
a larger number of papers to main campus, specifically the Hilltop Bakery
and Whispers in response to student input. This Fall, we will have increased
the number of newspapers from 700 to about 900 newspapers a day for student
use.

To keep up with campus news, please visit us at http://su.wustl.edu . We
also want to remind everyone that our legislative body meetings are open to
everyone and we encourage you to attend. Come to Treasury and Senate on
Tuesday and Wednesday nights in the Business School at 9PM to learn about
important issues on campus and have your voice heard.

We’ll talk to you soon.

Neil, Brittany, Marius, and Rebecca

E-mail on 7/13/07 to Student Union representatives updating them on our summer so far:

Student Union Representatives,

Somehow, July has snuck up on us. We sit here in the SU offices on July
12th, also famous for being the day on which Brittany Perez was born, and
can’t wait to have all of you back to campus. Brittany, Marius, and I
actually just got back from meeting a group of incoming freshman on their
ArtSci weekend and a riveting game of Taboo. But aside from the games, we’ve
been doing a lot around the SU offices over the summer.

On September 1st and the 2nd, we’ll be having our Fall Student Union Retreat
at the Camp Wyman retreat center. For those who haven’t gone before, it’s a
great opportunity to catch up with fellow SU reps (whether you’re on Senate,
Treasury, Class Council, School Council, Executive Committee, cabinet, etc.)
and plan for the upcoming year.

In addition, we’ll have plenty of time to bond, play cards, and learn a
thing or two about ourselves as leaders. We’ve got some interactive
activities planned (including the ever famous Strengthsquest). We’ll be
leaving after helping with Service First on Saturday at around 6PM and
return to Wash U around the same time the next day. This works well because
there’s no school on Monday, so you’ve got time to relax when you get back.
We only have around 40 spots on the bus, so we’ll start the RSVP process
now. Reply back to president@su.wustl.edu if you will attend.

On another equally exciting front on October 10th and 11th our Executive
Restructuring process plan, led valiantly by Jeff Zove last year, will be
put up to a student vote in a special election. It’s rare for SU to have a
special election and I think we should take advantage of this opportunity.
If you have any items that you think should go up to a student vote
(Constitutional amendment, Exec summer compensation (hah!), or anything else
innovative), now’s the time to bring it up. There are still a few meetings
in September and we can still have Senate and Treasury vote on putting
things on the ballot for the October special election. Let me know if you
have any ideas.

On a different note, you should have received your ASGA login IDs by now. If
you haven’t, let me know and I can go ahead and get you one. Regardless of
if you sign up for their e-mail lists, I think it’s great to look on the
site / send out questions when they come up and you want to hear what people
from a non-WU perspective want to see. And if any of you are interested in
attending a student government conference sometime within the next year, let
me know.

(continued in next e-mail)

I also wanted to update you on what we’ve been doing over the summer. It’s
been about two and a half months so far and with the help of SU reps such as
Jeff Nelson, Cheryl Cooper, Neha Tibrewala, Yewande Alimi, Jennifer Hadley,
Neehar Garg, Aaron Robinson, John Ablan and many others we’ve managed to be
very effective.

With the help of numerous SU members, students will come to campus in the
Fall supported by a brand new Technology Package! For the past few years,
starting with David Ader and Ed Banti and continuing last year with the help
of Paul Moinester, SU has been working hard to improve technology on campus.
Because of the effort of numerous SU reps, I am excited to inform you all of
significant changes that will take place upon your arrival. If you live on
the South 40 or the North Side, you will be able to take advantage of the
new Technology Package which includes significantly increased levels of
bandwidth, cable TV, strong wireless access within the dorms, and the safety
of an emergency text message system. This package has been years in the
making and you’ll be receiving more information on it in the mail. I am
proud to say that years of SU support has resulted in this enormous benefit
to our students.

Another important piece of news - due to a fiscally responsible approach to
the 2007-2008 SU budget, our Category I student groups fundraising
percentage was increased to 87.4%, meaning that these groups have received
more of what they’ve been asking for than at any other point in SU history.
This wouldn’t have been possible without the near unanimous support of the
budget in both Treasury and Senate and your commitment to giving
opportunities to all of our 230+ student groups.

On a similar note, the 2007-2008 budget lowered the amount of money
traditionally allocated to the Assembly Series and instead helped to create
a SU Speaker Series. This decision was made because we felt the Assembly
Series 11AM timeslot was undermining its support among undergraduates at
Washington University.

We are happy to announce that the Assembly Series has received the message
and this Fall, you’ll see a mixed scheduled of times beginning with Maya Lin
(the artist and architect of the Vietnam War memorial) on September 6th at
7:30PM. Also coming at the 4PM time slots are Cory Booker, the mayor of
Newark, NJ (and a rising star in the Democratic Party) and Alan Lightman,
writer of “Einstein’s Dreams” which some of you should be reading this
summer. Another highlight: on October 25th at 4PM, Kal Penn, the star of
“The Namesake” (also known as “Kumar” in “Harold and Kumar”) will be coming
to speak.

On the home front, Bearings 2007-2008 is coming along fantastically.
Bearings Editor Nic Albonico has been doing a great job of compiling the
book in an easy to use way for all students. In addition, we’re going to be
distributing the book door to door during Orientation to all freshman,
thereby increasing our interaction with the incoming class (we need your
help with this!). Even more exciting, by the end of the summer Bearings will
be online and searchable, making it an easily accessible and usable source
of information for all students.

There are a few more things to note, such as our increased financial
commitment to the Student Readership Program, the expansion of the campus
card to include more services (such as using money on your card to buy
things at the campus bookstore and campus eateries), and Student Union’s
role in important discussion regarding how to make the University Center
more student friendly.

It’s really busy over here and over the next few weeks, we’ll be ramping it
up even more. We always want to hear what you think and we can’t wait to see
you all in a few weeks.

Student Union Executive
Neil, Brittany, Marius, and Rebecca

A lot has happened since we last posted. The Student Union Budget for 2007-2008 was passed, we ended another school year, and we have begun our summer projects. I’ll (Neil) be writing over the summer because it’s something I love to do and I think an awesome way to keep in contact with those who want something fun to read.

So a general overview of the budget. This year, the SU budget got more coverage than I’ve seen at my time at Wash U. The change that caused the most talk was how we funded Executive Committees. Executive Committees are groups formed by past Executives outside of our normal student group process. Because of this, they usually have access to significant amounts of funds (given the Spring before their year begins) with very little oversight by SU.

This is interesting for two reasons. Executive Committees are officially part of the Executive Branch which is headed by the Student Union Executive. Therefore, Executive committees, must answer to Executive Officers. Any guidance, suggestion, or advice the Executives have must technically be implemented by Executive Committees (think the relationship between the President and his Cabinet).

However, this situation is ideal neither for us nor the Executive Committees. We do want a hand in their direction, but we do not want to micromanage them. We do want them to take our suggestions seriously, but we realize that they know what they’re doing best.

And so, we reached a solution. We wanted to hold them more accountable, cut of excess spending, and reestablish relationships with these Executive committees because at the end of the day, they are just as part of SU Executive as the President is. The 2007-2008 budget allocated $646,804.05 to Executive Committees ($110 per student). The groups that received the most money were Team 31 ($225K), Campus Programming Council ($97K), Sports Club Federation ($120K), Gargoyle ($31K), KWUR ($30K), WUTV ($26K).

And still, despite the fact that we allocated about $110 to these committees, there was significant backlash. To put it into context, SU’s other 230 Category I and Category II student groups for next year will be receiving $637K. That means a handful of Executive Committees were receiving more total than 230 student groups.

We wanted to strengthen our other 230 student groups (which include ABS, Ashoka, Dance Marathon, Relay for Life, CSA, JSU, CSU, etc - go to http://su.wustl.edu/general/groupresources/directory.php for the full list) and we did just that. All our student groups impact students’ lives and we wanted to make sure we gave them all the very best in resources.

We look forward to working with our Executive Committees to making sure that we are both doing the best possible things to reach out and affect each student.

Other interesting things in the budget: we created a Student Union Speaker Series with $40,000 to help us bring in big name speakers to campus next semester.

We created a Student Union advocacy fund with $22,000 so that SU can put money where its mouth is when it advocates for students. This money will go towards student initiatives that help the entire campus!

Here is a copy. Take a look. And remember to voice your input throughout the year on how this is and is not affecting you!

Student Union Budget 2007 - 2008

We are very glad that WUTV has been mobilizing its supporters, both past and present, to show campus why it is valuable to every student. This was in response to our budget proposal for WUTV. We encourage you all to come to Treasury and Senate on Tuesday and Wednesday to participate in discussion and help with the approval of the general budget. Our goal is to provide value to every student by giving every student group the chance to put on the programming it wants. Let us know what you think!

The following is our specific response to WUTV regarding some of the things that we did not fund in their budget:

———————–

Thank you for the information about the movies.

I would like to let you know that I understand your concern over not being
funded operating costs, but after looking at your budget again, we are
funding all that you requested minus the movies, vague repairs, and some
equipment for which the need was not clearly made evident to us through your
interview. I would also like to stress the fact that we as execs have no
intentions to “micromanage” WUTV as it would not be in your best interest or
an efficient use of our time. I’m sorry you feel that way about the appeals
account and hope that your experience with it is not such. Additionally, I
would like to remind you that while WUTV operates separately the vast
majority of the time, you are still a Student Union Executive Committee.
While I hope to avoid the SU “politics” as well I hope you understand it is
a part of our constitutional duty to oversee Executive Committees.

That being said, the items we did not initially fund in our proposal for the
general budget were things that during your interview seemed to be luxuries
rather than necessities. If this was somehow misinterpreted, then I
apologize for the misunderstanding but maintain that I cannot make changes
at this point to be fair to other groups. I would like to stress again, that
we do value WUTV as a student run station on campus. I’m also, sorry that I
cannot give you more specifics about what was and was not funded initially,
but it would again be giving special treatment to one group over others if I
were to do that.

I hope this e-mail was able to shed a little bit more light on the subject
for you and look forward to seeing you in Treasury Tuesday.

———————

Tonight at 7:30 in the Quad, we will have a community gathering to mourn the loss of life and to support our peers at Virginia Tech.

We invite you all to join.

Apparently campaigning wasn’t all the work involved with being a member of the SU Executive. This weekend we had meetings from 9-3PM on Saturday and 9-5PM on Sunday to talk about Executive Committee groups.

An executive committee / group is an entity that past SU Executives have deemed to benefit campus on a large-scale and thus requires a different method of funding. While most groups go through Treasury’s budget committee to get funding, Executive groups (Team 31, KWUR, WUTV, Gargoyle, CPC, Hatchet Yearbook, SHAC, Sports Club Federation etc.) have a more informal funding method. Not say that it’s an easier way to get money, but it definitely does facilitate helping these groups get larger sums because their programming is more expensive (since it is supposed to be targeted at more people).

The group also includes the school councils (Art Sci Council, Engineering Council, Business Schol Council, Art School Council, and Architecture School Council).

We held 30 minute interviews with all the Executive groups and it was very informative. We’re dealing with huge amounts of money (anywhere from 10K to 240K). Last year, about 1/4th of SU’s $2 million budget was allocated to these Executive groups. It’s an important process and we definitely would like your input on this!

E-mail us, call us, stop by and talk to us.

We will most likely submit the entire $2 million budget in about a week. We’ll be presenting it next Tuesday night (not this Tuesday, but next) and Wednesday night at the Treasury and Senate meetings. Remember when we said “probably”? That’s exactly what we mean.

So tomorrow is inauguration. Exciting. 4:30 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.

Be there!

And then we get our offices! Woohoo

Even though inauguration is on Monday, April 16th, we’re all busy meeting with people around campus to get us started with our initiatives. It’s awesome to see so many administrators that are student advocates.

On Friday, I got to meet with Barbara Rea who is the coordinator for the Assembly Series. She’s responsible for the fantastic speakers we get on a weekly basis. We talked about changing the Assembly Series time from 11AM on Wednesday (when a ton of people have classes and conflicts) to something around 4 or 5PM on Tuesday or Thursday.

Marius and I also emphasized our desire for nationally recognized speakers on campus. In the past year, SU helped student groups and Assembly Series to the tune of $100,000. In creating our budget this year, we will have a heavy focus on speakers, specifically the time of day and the name recognition of the speaker.

We look forward to bringing you all invigorating speakers at great times next year!

After that fun-tastic meeting, I had the opportunity to meet with Jeff Nelson to help plan things that SU would do for orientation. Freshman are full of great ideas and we would love to have them on board with SU (and SU groups) early on. CS40 does a great job of getting freshman involved ASAP and SU should follow their lead.

Jeff Nelson is also an upcomer in SU. He’s a Senator and involved in tons of facets on campus (WUTV, Orientation, SU, Tour Guide). Look for great things from him.

After this meeting, the Execs got to sit in on a meeting with a bunch of assistant Vice-Chancellors from around campus. It was a meet and greet in the OSA office and we got to chat about our approach to our goals next year, specifically fitness facilities, nationally recognized speakers, and technology (wireless internet, anyone).

These administrators (Dean Carroll, Dean Carnaghi, Dean McLeod, Dean Koff, Dean Coburn) are full-time advocates for us and let us know about the processes and intricacies for doing things around campus (AKA the politics of change). We are excited to be working with these people and can’t wait to have indepth conversations.

That’s all for Friday folks!

Neil

P.S. I also went to a WUnderground meeting at 5PM in the Gregg lobby. They’re the satire paper on campus and write some great stuff. Be sure to keep an eye out for them and write for them if you like what you see.

We’re all hanging out at the weekly Senate meeting which is 9:15PM in the Business School on Wednesdays.

The body talked about a lot of interesting things today. People presented on student performing practice space on campus, Career Center accountability, the drastic changes in the Engineering School, and whether SU will support a sober driver program that shuttles people to and from nightlife hotspots in St. Louis.

The current topic of discussion is the Executive Restructuring and it’s getting heated! Treasury wanted more checks within the Executive regarding how they vote on policy issues. Some members of the Senate believe that the Executive (President, VP, Treasurer, Secretary) should be able to govern itself without a check put on it by the legislative.

Eventually, this will be put up to a vote to the student body (through webSTAC). If you’re interested in SU checks and balances, who has power and who does not, as well as the tensions between the Executive and Legislative, come to our meetings. Tuesday at 9PM in the Business School - Treasury. Wednesday at 9:15PM

Hell, if you have any issues at all - be it from food options on campus to a general skepticism on how we spend your $328, come to our meetings and speak up during open forum.

Take care!

Neil

During the campaign, we all felt that the comments, insight, and recommendations we received from you were fantastic. We got tons of information from students who were not heavily involved with SU or any other public institution on campus, but still played an integral part in our campus community.

Be it regarding wireless internet, nationally recognized speakers, or better fitness facilities, your ideas and specific suggestions helped us solidify our priorities (and matched them to yours!)

This blog, the SU blog, is our way of communicating with you throughout the course of the year. Don’t hesitate to e-mail us, call us, or respond to blog entries with any suggestions you have.

We want to constantly update this and we want for you to regularly look at it. We’re going to have tons of information and informal insight. The views here represent our individual views on what is happening on campus and what we as the leaders of Student Union should be doing.

Stay tuned!

Neil Patel - President elect
Brittany Perez - Vice President elect
Marius Johnson - Treasurer elect
Rebecca Forman - Secretary elect