With their inductions into office next Monday, Eddie O’Leary, Mark Brewster and Katherine Capocelli are working on their plans for next year as SGA president, vice president and executive director of university relations.
O’Leary said he hopes to continue the programs he’s already working on while helping to solve such problems as parking issues that directly affect students.
“I want to continue a lot of the programs we started this year, including the book-trading Web site and the small-community initiative,” O’Leary said, “and I really want to work heavily on parking issues. I’ve actually met with city council. They are willing to write a legislation to change the parking signs around campus to fit our needs.”
Besides O’Leary, Brewster and Capocelli, 41 other students will be inducted as senators. O’Leary will appoint 15 cabinet members and a new chief of staff, who O’Leary said most likely will be Robert Smith.
“A few things we would like to work on in the next year include student parking around Richmond,” Brewster said, agreeing with O’Leary, “along with bringing better known and more edifying speakers to our campus and creating a more personal academic experience for the students within their individual colleges.”
Brewster said he also would like to continue a sense of culture and tradition at VCU.
Another issue high on the trio’s list concerns attracting more students to serve on the Monroe Park student government.
“A major obstacle in the student government is getting the students involved,” Brewster said. “The only way for us to make the university a higher quality social and educational experience is for students to voice their concerns and suggestions to us and for them to get involved in the SGA to help make those changes.
“We need student input, and we need students who are willing to put in the time to help make those changes.”
Capocelli agreed, saying students need to pay attention to voicing their opinions and to get involved. As executive director of university relations, Capocelli plans to organize projects that benefit the VCU community.
“I will hear and communicate the concerns of the student body, and I will be organizing the presidential roundtable for all VCU’s organizations so that their activities and concerns are known to all,” she said.
O’Leary and his team want to enact changes to the library hours and dormitory-visitation rules, plus push for university officials to add funds to the James Branch Cabell Library budget.
As for library hours, O’Leary said they’re working on trial dates now, and he encourages as many students as possible to go to the library during that time period. The administration will measure the use of the library during its 24 open hours.
“Not only that,” he said, “but we’re really pushing hard to have them add another million dollars to the library budget so we can stay open late.”
O’Leary and others are working on a report concerning dormitory-visitation hours, since the administrators require SGA to present a report whenever it proposes something to them.
“So we gather the report,” O’Leary said, “and that really shows that students don’t want the visitation hours. It’s really not normal in a college like this, so we’re moving that through the chain of command in the university right now.”
O’Leary predicted the 2005-06 SGA will be even more ambitious this year, so he sees more challenges on the leaders’ plates.
“I think every year the more ambitious we become as a student government the more challenging it is, because we ask for more and more, and sometimes stop asking and start demanding,” O’Leary said. “The city is not always used to it. The administration is not always used to it. But I hope it’s something they’re going to get used to, because we have a lot more people this year who are a lot more aggressive and really willing to work hard for the student body.”