With another November election approaching, there is little need for a reminder that politicians often make campaign promises that go unfulfilled. The promises of the elected members of FUSA are for the most part being fulfilled. However, the organization has difficulty with distributing this information to the students.
Taylor Morrison, ’05, who transferred to Fairfield last semester, said that he only heard about FUSA during the election campaigns last year.
One FUSA initiative that will begin on Tuesday is a monthly Open Forum program. The first program of the Open Forum will be devoted to bridging the communication gap between FUSA and some students on campus.
This program will feature the leaders of FUSA addressing any students who attend and answering questions afterwards, according to FUSA President Karen Donoghue. When this was mentioned to Morrison, he said that he was pleased with the program and the opportunity to express his opinions with members of FUSA.
“We don’t know all the answers,” Donoghue said while explaining the need for FUSA to hold it’s own forum. This forum will serve as an opportunity to get feedback from the students, she added.
This program is one of several initiatives that FUSA has been working on since this summer. While campaigning for the FUSA presidency, Donoghue promised to increase communication among the branches of FUSA and help students with the process of academic advising. On election night, she also said she would work to improve bus transportation.
Two months into the academic year, FUSA and Donoghue have addressed all of these issues.
Donoghue has begun a monthly community building effort for all branches of FUSA. Vice President of Senate Casey Butterly said that communication among FUSA members has increased “substantially.”
FUSA is also working on measures to help the student body as a whole. Some students have a favorable opinion of academic advising on campus. “Generally, the teachers here have a tendency to be very helpful,” said Gerry Abbey, ’04.
However, the contrasting opinion is often cast in stern language. Morrison said that academic advising was “awful” and that the professors often rush through the process to move on to other matters.
Several seniors have said that they haven’t talked to their advisors since their freshman year.
Butterly said that this concern was a significant issue addressed by the Senate. He said that FUSA is considering a survey to investigate student opinions on advising with the intention of presenting the results to the administration. If the negative sentiments expressed above are representative of a significant number of students, Butterly said that FUSA will look to “encourage more systematic change” in advising.
In the mean time, FUSA’s response — though still in the planning stages — is to have a peer advising system to compliment the advising system already in place. The peer advisors would be upperclassmen who are members of their major’s honor society or an academic, FUSA leaders said.
When this idea was mentioned to Abbey and Morrison, they both said that they believed this policy would be helpful. Abbey cautioned though that it would be important to make sure that the people doing the advising were knowledgeable about the subjects. As of now, the goal for FUSA is to have the peer advising system in place by registration next semester, according to Donoghue.
Donoghue and Butterly said that work was being done to have more reliable bus transportation around campus and the town of Fairfield. There are also plans to promote athletic events with up to $500 for a student who attends a certain number of athletic events and becomes eligible for the prize in a raffle.
Butterly said that all of FUSA was doing their work well this year. Though he campaigned on the ticket that rivaled Donoghue’s he said, “I think Karen’s doing a fantastic job” maintaining a good overview of FUSA.
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