USG Briefs
Gillian Seaman
Issue date: 10/30/09 Section: News
At last Tuesday night's Undergraduate Student Government General Assembly, much conversation centered on the morale and overall feeling of the representatives. Representative Keith Lupton raised the issue stating, "We're lacking some excitement and passion. We're missing the fire of years past." He also referenced USG's poor retention for the summer, "We have been losing more representatives than we can fill." He asked for additional opinions about the issues.
Parlimentarian Divya Aggarwal felt that "people don't realize how much of a time commitment this is." Other representatives cited wanting representative development as a primary problem.
Advisor Colleen Barker Williamson urged representatives not to fault USG as an organization but rather look to why individual representatives had resigned. She also implored the committees to re-evaluate their goals for the semester.
"To do this job you need to think forward…Don't look backwards," she said.
The other contentious issue raised during G.A was smoking on campus. Vice president of student life Minh-Tri Nguyen and representative Mai Segawa introduced general assembly resolution R.19-02. The resolution, A Resolution for Implementing Additional Campus-Wide Designated Smoking Areas, calls for the creation of four new designated smoking areas. The areas would be located around Kelvin Smith Library, the Case quad, by the Greek houses at the bottom of the hill, and near the village at 115.
Segawa stated that the measures were designed because students had been using the lack of areas as excuses to avoid being cited by campus police. "Giving four more areas will mean the smokers will have no more excuses," she said.
Many representatives took issue with increasing the amount of designated areas as decidedly harmful to the student body. Nursing representative Laura Tycon was particularly displeased with the proposal, arguing it was hypocritical in light of the campus's recent green initiatives. Tycon proceeded to argue that USG should instead lead "a push for a smoke free campus."
Parlimentarian Divya Aggarwal felt that "people don't realize how much of a time commitment this is." Other representatives cited wanting representative development as a primary problem.
Advisor Colleen Barker Williamson urged representatives not to fault USG as an organization but rather look to why individual representatives had resigned. She also implored the committees to re-evaluate their goals for the semester.
"To do this job you need to think forward…Don't look backwards," she said.
The other contentious issue raised during G.A was smoking on campus. Vice president of student life Minh-Tri Nguyen and representative Mai Segawa introduced general assembly resolution R.19-02. The resolution, A Resolution for Implementing Additional Campus-Wide Designated Smoking Areas, calls for the creation of four new designated smoking areas. The areas would be located around Kelvin Smith Library, the Case quad, by the Greek houses at the bottom of the hill, and near the village at 115.
Segawa stated that the measures were designed because students had been using the lack of areas as excuses to avoid being cited by campus police. "Giving four more areas will mean the smokers will have no more excuses," she said.
Many representatives took issue with increasing the amount of designated areas as decidedly harmful to the student body. Nursing representative Laura Tycon was particularly displeased with the proposal, arguing it was hypocritical in light of the campus's recent green initiatives. Tycon proceeded to argue that USG should instead lead "a push for a smoke free campus."
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