FUSA President Karen Donoghue ’03 set out a number of important goals for her administration, including increasing voter turnout and taking on student apathy, at a recent press conference.
Donoghue said that she is “taking a different approach” to FUSA, crippled in past years by poor leadership and apathetic student involvement. FUSA receives almost $261,000 from the university every year.
Among Donoghue’s goals for this year are leadership training, having more input on student life decisions, online voting, and more student participation.
“FUSA is not motivated anymore,” said Donoghue. “It’s ridiculous that FUSA was so lax in the past.”
This lack of motivation keeps the administration from taking FUSA seriously, several sources inside FUSA said, commenting that major student life decisions such as the recent smoking ban were made with neither the advice nor the consent of the Senate.
“I wish they had given more thought to the student body,” said Donoghue. “It was going to happen here…[but] I wish it was more of a phase-in process. They didn’t really ask for student input, and ignored the student voice on campus.”
Donoghue said that the Senate was against an all-out smoking ban in the residence halls and asked for more questions on the subject. During the past summer the Dean of Students’ office decided to make all residence halls smoke-free.
Donoghue also said that Senate “has good attendance” this year, partly because of a policy whereby senators will be dismissed after two unexcused absences from meetings.
Another initiative taken by FUSA is a new “Open Forum” series, intended to provide more important information to students when they need it.
FUSA Internal Executive Assistant Jordan Schibler, ’03 said that the first scheduled forum is Oct. 22 and is intended for students to meet members of FUSA. There will be a presentation followed by questions and answers during the forums.
Schibler also said that he is trying to schedule such a forum with Director of Security Todd Pelazza as soon as possible because of recent concerns with security over the increase in forcible sexual offenses on campus and the slow response time to several apartments that received harassing phone calls last week.
Other topics discussed for the Open Forums were a housing forum around lottery time and even a discussion with President Rev. Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., who Donoghue meets with on a monthly basis.
“He told me FUSA is doing an amazing job,” said Donoghue.
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