After taking a solemn oath late Sunday afternoon to “preserve, protect, and defend the constitution and bylaws of the Student Association,” newly-inaugurated GUSA President Trevor Tezel (SFS ‘15) and Vice-President Omika Jikaria (SFS ‘15) sat down with the Voice for an interview.
What are you plans for your first 100 days as GUSA Executive and Vice-Executive?
Tezel: If you’ve seen the long platform, you’ll see we have a number of proposals for our first hundred days. I’ll touch on a few: [first, we’re] really trying to get an administrator-student committee to look at our access-to-benefits policies, including things that affect free speech, and hammer out the MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] with administrators on the Speech and Expression Policy that Nate [Tisa] and Adam [Ramadan] started.
Jikaria: We’re creating a Multicultural Council, and we’re re-instating the Transfer [Student] Council. Right now, we just finished picking out our cabinet and staff, so we’re working closely with them.
Tezel: I think there’s going to be some Code of Conduct stuff that we’re pursuing—hopefully, reexamining the Open Container policy and maybe getting an extension on that before the semester runs out.
Could you elaborate on what access-to-benefits means?
Tezel: When we talk about “recognized” and “unrecognized” student groups, [we need to understand that] no student groups are actually recognized; there are just certain ones that have access to university benefits… [The access-to-benefits] policies do not allow access to benefits to groups that might be fraternities or sororities, have secret rituals, make profit, or go against our Roman Catholic or Jesuit values. These policies are pretty outdated, and, really, what we’re looking to do is sit down with administrators and reevaluate and revise these policies.
If you had to summarize the legacy of Nate and Adam, what do you think it would be, and how do you hope to build, or not build, off of that legacy?
Jikaria: I think they got a lot of good conversations started, and I think they made GUSA seem more inclusive and accepting of all voices, especially when it came to things like sexual assault policies and some Code of Conduct reforms. I think that, obviously, we want to keep on continuing to have those conversations, especially when it comes to things like free speech. … I also think that, also, they did a really great job of reaching out to groups that might have been originally involved in GUSA, so we definitely want to keep building on that through different proposals.
One of your biggest bullet points was revising the Speech and Expression Policy. Could you talk about some of your specific steps [in pursuing that proposal], as well as the kind of roadblocks you’re expecting to encounter?
Tezel: During the Free Speech Forum, Dr. [Todd] Olson made a commitment to [come] to a Memorandum of Understanding on the Speech and Expression Policy before the end of the semester. So, we know we’re going to have the document. The question is, what’s going to be in that? I know that some of the things we’re going to be pushing for are things like ensuring that there are no penalties to access-to-benefits groups that co-sponsor [events] with non-access-to-benefits groups, and ensuring that we redefine Red Square as a public forum and understand that all of campus is a Free Speech Zone. I think [the MoU will involve] laying out specifics what Residence Life, GUPD [Georgetown University Police Department], Student Affairs can and can’t do in their enforcement of policy, and formalizing an appeals process for their work.
Some people have been riled up by the recent revocation of funding for the Collegiate Readership program. Could you speak about your opinions on that?
Jikaria: It’s sad that we no longer have [the Collegiate Readership program] in the budget, because it’s really nice to be able to provide those newspapers to students, and a lot of students read them… but I think the biggest thing for us is having the option to evaluate the program before it gets cut.
Tezel: We had submitted an appeal for the original budget that was created, focusing on three specific areas: our discretionary budget, which was down to $1000, the Turbo-Vote program, and the Collegiate Readership program. We were able to get back some money for in the executive discretionary [budget], but the Collegiate Readership program was still funded at $0. So, at this point, per procedure, it’s going to be debated now by the Senate.
