The current SA administration has just over two and half months to leave their mark on campus. This group of students has already saved the Student Readership program, raised the minimum GPA for scholarship students and brought a former vice president to Syracuse University, but they still face criticism for lack of productivity.

What few critics recognize is that SA still has a handful of objectives they are attempting to turn into realities. Vice President Bryan Dumas is hopeful that by the end of the semester he will have ‘left an off-campus shuttle, made Goldstein more accessible and brought recognition to the Student Readership program.’ These are ambitious and practical goals that Dumas has set for the SA and execution will not be easy.

SA Chief of Staff Ryan Kelly believes that if students show their support for SA they will be able to push this agenda more aggressively.

‘It’s a cycle,’ said Kelly. ‘If students support SA then we have more push with (the university) administration.’

SU administrators have heard plenty of requests from SA already. Dumas has three major tasks listed on the whiteboard in his office.

The first is to increase student awareness of the Student Readership program, which SA spent over $30,000 to fund earlier this year. It was announced earlier in the semester that a new logo would be created for the program, which provides copies of The New York Times and USA Today around campus. Dumas’s plan for the program includes a new marketing strategy, integrating the program to meet needs of graduate students and bringing speakers offered by the participating newspapers to campus.

The most ambitious proposal is for a continuously running Marshall Street shuttle that would operate late at night. This addition may be expensive but it would provide off-campus students with a safe method of transportation from Marshall Street to their homes. Campus safety is becoming a concern for SA to deal with, said Kelly.

The final goal on Dumas’s board could be of great use to South Campus residents. SA is attempting to extend the evening hours of Goldstein Student Center, which currently closes at 12:30 am. With extended hours, students will have more time to do their laundry, eat at the food court or use the computer cluster. The cost of more hours would most likely not come from SA’s student activity fund. Rather, the tab would be added to the university’s expenses.

It’s going to take some wooing of administration on the part of SA to execute the Goldstein and late night bus proposals. The plans are both expensive and luxuries which are not vital to survival of the student body. Yet, the reactionary policy making in response to safety concerns shows that SA is basing its agenda on real student concerns.

‘(We want to) dispel the myths that SA can’t do anything for (the students),’ said Dumas.

The next few months will give SA its opportunity to dispel any myths, but it will take both execution and student recognition to achieve this goal. Even though the ‘Who is SA’ public relations campaign is over, there must still be a focus on letting students know how SA is helping them. A new logo for the readership program was a step in this direction. But the best way to be recognized is to keep developing useful and appropriate programs for the students of this campus.

Things like getting Al Gore to speak for their 50th anniversary.

Matt Reilly is a sophomore political science and public relations major whose columns appear Mondays in The Daily Orange. Email him at msreilly@syr.edu.

Published on September 24, 2006 at 12:00 pm