Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Hi, my name is Jason Heo (2015), and I would like to represent you as the Campus Life Representative. Throughout my first year and a half here, our student body has become more and more responsive towards issues that have arisen on campus, due to differences between students, student groups, or even the students and administration. Though the Daily Gazette and Phoenix serve as fairly efficient forums to garner student responses to these issues, I do not believe the majority of Swarthmore students spend enough time on those respective websites to hear the opinions of their peers.
Despite having read about the need for greater transparency between the Student Council and the general student body in past platforms, I have not yet seen much change transpire. As the Campus Life Representative, I believe more regular posts via social media can improve transparency. Additionally, the Student Council’s website and weekly agendas should be displayed more prominently on campus and online.
Aside from transparency being a popular topic in past platforms and Student Council discussions, I have become familiar with the issue through my involvement with different groups on campus. Representing the track and field team as a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has allowed me to better understand the relationship between the athletic community and the greater Swarthmore community. As an active member of the fencing and club soccer teams, I have experienced the issues that student-run groups face with budgeting, organization, and planning. Lastly, as a newly appointed member of the Orientation Committee, I hope I, through the Student Council, can help incoming students better understand the structures that exist between the administration, Student Council, and students groups (namely SBC and SAC). I believe my regular interaction with such a wide range of people with varying perspectives will allow me to be an effective member of the Council.
Furthermore, I hope to bring some other initiatives to the Council that I believe would improve student/campus life:
- implementing a meal counter on the Dashboard, which would allow students to simply input their ID number and see their remaining number of meals from the comfort of their dorm room
- continuing the search for a better late night food option on campus
- utilizing Gmail as the interface for Swarthmore emailing
Hi Jason,
I just want to clarify a few things on your platform from a StuCo perspective; I agree that transparency is incredibly important, which is why I want to make sure that the steps StuCo has taken to be more transparent are clear.
-The Student Outreach Coordinator position was created over a year ago to increase StuCo’s social media presence and communication to the students. Through this position most of our meetings are live Tweeted, and Facebook statuses regularly announce meetings, meeting changes, and what StuCo is up to.
-Our new website, created by our current Student Outreach Coordinator, has greatly increased our ability to communicate our work with the student body. Our current secretary shifted from taking minutes in microsoft Word to taking them on GoogleDOCs. Because of this change students can see our agenda before meetings even take place, and see the StuCo Secretary taking minutes as the meetings happen.
Through the work of current members our social media presence and our use of GoogleDOCs, StuCo has increased its transparency to the point of real time updates! The availability of those documents and information have been posted numerous times on our Twitter and Facebook.
-Gabby