Every year during GUSA campaigning you hear a lot of candidates tell you how great they are, how many clubs they have been in, and how many leadership positions they have held. We are not going to lie to you, we, Tim and Reno, are pretty great by these standards, but that is not why we are running and we are pretty sure you are sick of hearing about it. Instead we want to focus on what we are going to do especially as most of our platform focuses on you. We will take the power that GUSA has and put it behind students and student groups.
For years, GUSA has used liaisons to determine what programs are worthy and which ones are not, with the result being that numerous students and student groups have been forced to pander to GUSA’s interests; we would like to change that. We want to decentralize, moving the money and power to student groups and using GUSA’s weight to back those groups and their ideas.
Funding has been one of the sources of the most heartache for student groups. Last year alone $1.7 million was requested for groups, with less than $1 million of that actually being allocated. This has to change, and it will under a Rosenberger/Varghese executive. One way we want to do this is through an examination of all student expenses including the Yates and language fees.
The Student Activities Commission (SAC), which is responsible for funding most student groups on campus, also needs more help to execute their duties. Every SAC commissioner will tell you that they are overrun with work; adding another SAC commissioner should help to alleviate some of this, and create a more efficient body. Along with this comes what should be done about unrecognized student groups. One way to help these student groups is by allocating them a position on the Council of Advisory Boards. This way they can be assured a seat at the table, at the very least. It is this and other ideas on unsanctioned groups that helped earn us an A- ranking, the second highest of all tickets, from H*yas for Choice.
Finally, we want to make sure Georgetown resources are being used to their full capacity. Georgetown has so many resources, yet constant inefficiencies in the system continue to exist. For example, the CSE and OCAF systems for renting university equipment and space still operate separately, even though students use them in tandem. Furthermore, while Georgetown has incredible programs within each school, students are forced to segregate based on their school. This is unacceptable. Students should be able to enjoy the richness of programs in all schools by being able to minor across each.
We would like to finish by giving you our elevator pitch, so here it goes: as GUSA executives we would represent the students and the best way to do that is to let students speak. We want to make the university a better place, first by expanding the resources it has and then going further. So, for the Love of Georgetown, let’s get to work.
