From the president

There are those that call this period of the semester “crunch time.” Professors are assigning more projects, readings become more complex, and midterms are right around the corner. Regardless of whether or not your classes are picking up the pace, these moments of academic exhilaration are the times the try students’ souls. I admire all of you out there for your hard work, and I hope that as president, I can make it easier on you by advocating for your concerns.

On that note, the application deadline for SGA elections has been extended to Tuesday Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. I encourage all students to run for the student senate! Pick up an application from the SGA office and turn it in next Tuesday the 20th in the box outside the SGA office. I will not be running for reelection, but the candidate list out there so far is very impressive. As I said earlier in a previous column, elections are a very exciting time for SGA. Don’t miss out on your chance to get involved.

On Tuesday, Feb. 13, student senators Emad Maghsoudi, Lauren Gauthier and Lauren Fevrier, executive director Kaitlin Bowles, and I met with the campus police to discuss a variety of issues including keeping banned students off campus and escort service reform. Of particular interest was the prospect of a new lighting survey. As president, I firmly believe that the lighting needs improvement to deter crime from occurring on the VCU campus at night. The meeting was very productive, and the police were very responsive to our concerns.

Visit our SGA Rumor Mill at www.vcusga.com/safety and post any safety rumors you hear and get the real scoop from the VCU campus police. The Rumor Mill was down for a few weeks, but it’s back up and operational. Feel free to post anything you hear about safety/crime on campus, and the University Police will set the story straight.

In the past two weeks, the senate has debated a variety of issues and passed a number of resolutions. The most important of these actions has been to make the add/drop extension and the service day proposals a voter referendum. What this means is that when you vote for president and senators, you would also get to vote to approve measures to extend the add/drop period and to create a university-wide Service Day with no classes and plenty of opportunities to volunteer in the community. We are working to take the issues directly to you, the student body, and we hope you take advantage of it to let the administration know, whether you vote “yes” or “no,” that you mean business.

The senate also voted to confirm my appointment of Rebecca Imholt, who has served as a justice October 2007, to chief justice of the judicial board. Rebecca plans to work with the Senate to create a better definition of the role of the Judicial Board.

In terms of our lobbying activities at the state legislature, our affirmed Rapid Response team has made a lot of progress. I encourage everyone to go to our Web site, www.vcusga.com, and click on “podcasts” to check out an exciting interview with Maggie O’Brien, SGA director of political affairs. There is only one week left of the General Assembly session, so if you want to make any last minute contributions to the legislative process, let Maggie know at politics@vcusga.com.

That’s all for today. Make sure to visit www.vcusga.com and check out what SGA is doing for you. Drop me a line at sgapresident@vcu.edu for any questions, concerns, complaints, kudos, confessions, accusations or scathing remarks. OK, maybe not all of those, but I’m here to hear you.