By Rachel Luchmun
Lower food prices and improved reach to students are just two of this year’s Student Senate achievements. The Senate also worked to host activities for the community at large.
“This year the senate had a purposeful goal, and it was to do what they can to connect more to the students, to show who they are, make students more aware of what they do,” said Mindy Kinnaman, manager, Student Life/Leadership Development.
Kinnaman also said a big accomplishment of the Senate was the lowering of catering fees for clubs and organizations on campus, a feeling shared by Gina Galanou, current Student Senate president.
“We got lower prices for clubs and orgs,” Galanou said. “For example, for Multicultural Night, the initial bill that they had was $6000 and we brought it down to $3000. They worked out some amazing deals. We’re talking about pretty significant changes.”
The lower prices for catering should enable clubs and organizations to save money and use it for other activities, as their budget is limited.
The Senate also aimed at helping clubs and organizations through their Leadership program.
“We have leadership training to clubs and organizations that wish to participate,” Galanou said. “Now and then they run low on numbers in terms of their members or they don’t know how to fundraise, so we give them tips and pointers on what to do and how.”
Reaching out to the community at large was the ‘JCCC Gives’ initiative, which aimed to pair community members in need with others who would be willing to give them a much needed gift over the Christmas break. It was so successful that Senate is planning to make ‘JCCC Gives’ a once-a-semester event, as opposed to just once a year.
“In all honesty I think ‘JCCC Gives’ is the best thing we’ve ever done,” Galanou said. “You read those stories and you realize you have things that other people don’t. We had so many students adopting others, it was extremely touching to see everybody get so involved with it.”
Other achievements of the Senate include:
- SafeSpace training, which offers support specifically to the LGBT community.
- Hosting the annual Daffodil Day, Photos with Santa and Trick-or-Treat for children.
- Working with the sustainability committee to encourage students to submit green ideas for campus.
- Supporting clubs and organizations by giving them as much money as possible.
- An informative town hall meeting about the smoking ban.
- A town hall meeting about dining services.
- The Learning Management System project, which aims at encouraging professors to post more course content online, such as syllabi and updated grades.
The town hall meetings held by the Senate this year proved to be a success, due to the fact they addressed specific issues.
“Last year we had town hall meetings and they were very sparsely attended, whereas this year we had great attendance at all of our town hall meetings,” Kinnaman said.
Part of the success of the Senate this year can be attributed to having a majority of the seats filled, according to Galanou.
“This year we almost had a full senate, we filled almost every single spot, which was really good,” she said. “Recently we had our parliamentarian step down – not the newly elected, but the current one – but we are not going to replace him since [there is not a lot of time left in the semester].”
The newly elected executive board is currently in the process of shadowing, where they are learning their respective new roles. Newly elected president Awista Sherzada told the Ledger in an article published on April 13 that she will uphold the annual traditions of the Senate and work on promoting the Senate more around campus.
“I want to get the word out there, I want to get more people to come to these events because we all work so hard to make them happen and they’re so fun,” she said.
For more information about Student Senate and how to get involved, go to http://www.jccc.edu/studentsenate.
Contact Rachel Luchmun, managing editor, at rluchmun@jccc.edu.