An overdue meeting update:
On March 13, the Eric Couper and I met with presidents of the Business, Liberal Arts, Architecture, and Science and Engineering school government presidents. We discussed the pending changes to USG and school governments' representation- Architecture and Public Health will continue to send 1 representative, but Liberal Arts will send 8, rather than 3. Most of the reactions have been positive, and the questions from students seem to be clarifications. Mihnea Dobre, the president of the ASG (architecture) is only concerned that smaller schools will loose their voice if the larger schools and housing representatives vote as a block. The presidents enjoyed the meeting- we had good discussion about campus-wide academic issues and ideas for the future of school governments, such as an Election Week.
One issue that came up in the presidents' meeting and again in USG the next week, was the issue of long meetings and attendance. Is USG always destined to be a small group of dedicated students who will withstand long hours of meetings to get things accomplished, or is there a way to shorten meetings to ecourage more students to be involved while remaining productive? In the last few USG exec boards we've toyed with ideas of committee-based actions to speed up the general senate meetings, online discussion boards, weekely email updates on campus activities, and student-wide press like the Hullabaloo, this blog and Twitter. Is any of it working? How can we attract people who truely care and are committed to Tulane, their constituents and USG without consuming all of their time and energy? How can we reward attentive and hard working senators and punish sentors who are inactive or constantly absent?
We are looking for solutions- do you have any ideas?
"I'm always thinking of the undergraduates"
- Margaret Walker, your USG president
mwalker@tulane.edu
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