Student Association Presses for Student Space

by Myles Goldman

The Student Association had its shortest meeting of the year Monday night but found time to pass a comprehensive Student space bill.

The bill titled, "Student Space Campaign Act" passed unanimously in a meeting that only lasted about 40 minutes.  The bill voices support for the student space campaign proposal SA President Ashwin Narla released last week.  http://www.wrgwnews.com/2013/01/student-association-proposes-new.html

"Calling on a firm commitment from The George Washington University Board of Trustees, President and Administration to making Student Space a priority," the bill states, "and laying out in the next semester a timeline for University investment in Student Space," it states.

The SA has spent the last week trying to rally support for the bill.  On Tuesday night SA Senators and members of Narla's Cabinet went dorm storming with a petition urging students to sign and show their support.  On Thursday from 12-2 there will be a rally for the bill in Kogan plaza.  Free food will be served, and the SA is expecting 1600 students will attend.

The SA's goal is to collect 5,000 student signatures on the petition that Narla plans to bring to the Board of Trustees when they meet next week.

Senator Ryan Counihan (SOB-U), the bill's sponsor, says this year's SA is addressing the student space issue more directly with administrators.

"We've played nice [with the Administration] for a year-and-a-half, but at this point we're rethinking our strategy," he said.

At the meeting approximately 14 Senators were absent, most likely due to rush week for fraternities and class conflicts.  Additionally, the SA invited student organization leaders to attend the meeting to talk about student space and tried to entice them with free food but it appeared that very few organization leaders attended.

In other news from the meeting it was announced that Student Association elections will likely be held the first week after spring break.  The JEC will make the final decision in the next week or two.

Student Association Proposes New Student Space Plan

by Myles Goldman

Editors Note: This story was edited on Friday, January 25th to reflect the University's response to the SA proposal.  Initially, the University could not be reached for comment.

The Student Association on Thursday officially released a new student space proposal designed to advance dialogue with the University on how to improve the student life experience at GW.  The plan titled, "Student Association Spring Report: Long Term Commitment to Student Space" is the second proposal Student Association President Ashwin Narla has led during his nearly 9 months as President.

The eight page report focuses on two areas on campus to be developed for student space, the Marvin Center 3rd floor outdoor terrace and the basement of the Square 77 project, which is informally known to many as the "Super-dorm construction project.".  In the case of the Marvin Center 3rd floor terrace the proposal specifically calls for the terrace to be renovated to allow for either a specific GW coffee store or a Starbucks, a graduate student lounge, meeting rooms for student organizations that would be built in a way that they could also be used for study rooms, and that access to the renovated space be 24/7 to students.

As for Square 77, which is where the University intends to replace Crawford, Schenley, and West End residence halls with a twelve-story dorm housing freshmen and sophomores, the proposal calls for the 60,000 square foot basement of the new building to be student space and possibly include more dinning options, the relocation of Student Health Services, which is currently located on K Street, and student lounges.  Additionally, the proposal requests there be a student present at each of the planning meetings for the new building.

The SA's proposal is a follow-up to the one they published in the early portion of the fall semester.  The first proposal included ten recommendations the SA suggested to increase student space.  Although the University took one of the suggestions in October and extended the hours Duques and Funger hall are open for students to study-in, GW did little to respond to the other suggestions.  In the cover letter of the proposal, Narla and Vice President Abby Bergren hope the new proposal will be able to move the discussion of student space on campus forward after they spent additional time researching student space efforts at "market basket" schools such as Boston University, New York University, and Tulane University.

The SA will now spend the next two weeks working to gain support from students for the plan.  The marketing plan for the proposal includes circulating a petition around campus asking students to sign that they support the plan, SA leaders meeting with Student organizations to talk about the plan, and the launch of a website: www.gwstudentspace.org, which talks about the plan, includes a copy of the plan, and gives students the opportunity to sign the petition.

On January 31st from 12-2pm the SA will host a rally in Kogan plaza for the plan with free food from Jetties, music, and an opportunity to sign the petition.

After February 6th, the petition will close and Narla plans to bring it with him when he meets with the Board of Trustees at their February meeting on February 7th and 8th.

It's not clear how many signatures the SA hopes to obtain from the student body.  One member of the SA said a target number had not been decided while another is telling student organizations that the SA's goal is to obtain 5,000 signatures.

On Friday University Spokeswoman Michelle Sherrard issued the following response on behalf of the University to the SA proposal.

"We continually work with student leaders to make improvements to the student experience on our campuses.  We will carefully review the Student Association Spring Report.  And, we'll continue to engage in dialogue with the Student Association, other student leaders, faculty, and philanthropic contributors to the university regarding further investments in the student experience including our physical facilities," Sherrard said.  
 
Narla is optimistic he will be able to work with University officials to make the proposal possible.

"They were very helpful [in regards to the first proposal] and I think they will be helpful on the second proposal," he said.

The entire proposal can be found at: www.gwstudentspace.org.

Student Association Starts Spring Semester with Three Bills

by Myles Goldman

The Student Association started the 2013 Semester passing three bills at its meeting this past Monday night.

The first bill titled, "A Bill to Create a New Way for Student Organizations to Raise Funds," creates an SA fund allowing student organizations to borrow money for a fundraiser and then after the fundraiser pay the SA back the money borrowed.  Any additional money the organization made the organization would be able to keep.  If the organization is unable to pay the SA back after the fundraiser, then they would go into debt, and the organization would be responsible for paying the SA back the remaining money either the next time they had a fundraiser or it would be taken out of the organization's next allocation.

Other stipulations of the bill put a cap of 500 dollars on the money an organization can borrow at any one time and that the loan cannot exceed the amount the organization was originally allocated.

The second bill focused on cases where student organizations are found guilty by the University of discriminating or hazing a student.  The bill titled, "Bylaws Amendment to Protect Students from Discrimination and Hazing" "imposes finance penalties on student orgs that the Dean of Students panel is found to have hazed or discriminated against individual students," according to language in the bill.  The bill calls for the SA Finance Committee to automatically take 33 percent of an organization's funding if they are found guilty of discrimination or hazing.  The bill gives the Finance Committee the ability to apply a stiffer penalty if they deem necessary.

The bill was proposed by Nick Gumas (CCAS) and later an amendment by Freshman Senator Ryan Moorman was approved that says the financial penalty would only be leveled against a specific organization and not umbrella organizations  unless the umbrella organization had been discriminating through all their sub-umbrella organizations.

Gumas explained that the intent of the bill was not to target fraternities or sororities, which the SA does not directly fund.

The SA approved the third bill, amendments to the Joint Elections Committee Charter for this spring's SA elections.  The JEC is the organization that oversees SA elections. Although many amendments were proposed for the charter, amendments such as eliminating penalties for SA Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates who ran as a ticket were rejected by the SA.  As a result, the approved JEC Charter is very similar to last year's.

In addition to passing bills at the meeting the SA also heard a presentation from the Division of Information Technology Services.  David Steinour, Chief Information Officer for the department, spoke to the SA and told them about a 4.2 million dollar wireless network upgrade the university is currently working on over the next three years in order to improve Internet service on campus.  Steinour commented that the Mount Vernon campus along with City Hall, The Dakota, and the Smith Center had already been upgraded.  Many other buildings and halls should be completed by the end of the academic year Steinour said.

Finally, SA President Ashwin Narla told senators that the second student space proposal from his administration was to be completed by Friday, January 18th.  Narla told senators the proposal would focus on long-term goals and the plan would include building onto the third floor terrace in the Marvin Center.