From the president

Welcome back to a new semester at VCU. The spring brings with it an exciting list of projects that the SGA is working on for the students.

The SGA will be holding elections this spring for the student senate and the executive offices of president, vice president & executive director. Twenty-five of the 50 seats in the student senate are open for elections. Election packets are available in the SGA office and are due Feb. 16. Elections will be held in early March. For more information, visit www.vcusga.com and click on “Get Involved.”

Last semester, the Senate Publicity Committee and I met with technology services to ask for improvements in the VCU e-mail system. In response to our suggestions that the VCU e-mail system be changed and made more student friendly, technology services has made the following changes:

There will be a new “simple e-mail interface” option. This is an alternate way to login to your VCU e-mail and uses a much simpler and lighter e-mail system than Lotus Notes. When you go to the e-mail login page, before logging in, check the small checkbox underneath that says “enable simple e-mail interface.” This will log you in to the lighter, faster version. There has also been a new e-mail portlet added in the MyVCU portal. This allows quick and easy sending and receiving of e-mail directly through MyVCU.

SGA members have been working hard to advocate for more student financial aid and higher education funding from the Virginia General Assembly. I recently spoke before members of the GA and urged them to invest in Virginia’s future by increasing financial aid, faculty salaries and base adequacy funding. If you’re interested in helping out with the fight, join our Virginia21 chapter this Monday, Jan. 22, at 3 p.m. in the Canal Room of the University Student Commons.

I’m creating a Green Campus Taskforce of students to investigate how VCU can become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. The taskforce will compile a list of recommendations and this will be forwarded to Provost Stephen Gottfredson and President Eugene P. Trani. We hope that by advocating for environmentally friendly and energy-efficient buildings, VCU can save money and become a role model institution for the community.

The SGA Book Trading Web site is back online and fully operational. Unfortunately, it was unavailable for several weeks because of spyware issues. We’ve upgraded the software and made it more secure. Also, the SGA online discussion forums are back, so students can once again interact with their representatives online. The same user name and password can be used for both the book trading Web site and the discussion forums. The forums are online at http://forums.vcusga.com. The book trading site is at www.vcusga.com/booktrading.

The SGA is here to advocate for you, the students. Feel free to e-mail me anytime at sgapresident@vcu.edu. Also check out your online student advocacy home at www.vcusga.com. Good luck to all in the new semester!