After one year as Student Association president, Boris Gresely can’t imagine how other presidents served just two semesters.

“I think that two semesters is not enough. And the reason why is that the first semester you spend that entire semester networking, building relationships,” he said. “And then that last semester is the campaign semester which is very hard as well, because all the attraction is somewhere else.”

Luckily for Gresely, he doesn’t have to fit all his plans into just two semesters. Due to a change in the SA constitution, Gresely is the first and only student to serve three semesters as SA president. His third and final semester starts Monday night with the first SA meeting of the year.

Serving three semesters is something Gresely has always planned for and he campaigned on a three-part plan to reform, redirect and reconnect SA. With their final semester in office, Gresely and the rest of the 58th session are working to complete several long-term initiatives while looking ahead to the next session as SA elections take place.

In Fall 2013, Syracuse University students voted to ratify a new SA constitution that, among other things, changed the period the president serves to match the academic year. Previously, the president’s term matched the calendar year. To start the new schedule, Gresely and his Vice President Daniela Lopez had to serve three semesters.

“This last semester is really where all the leg work and all the heavy lifting that has been done gets executed, “ he said. “So now this semester we really see the fruits of our labor.”

To that end, Gresely has a calendar with the first month of the semester all planned out. Some initiatives Gresely said he hopes to accomplish this semester are a new leadership program for first year students, an educational outreach about financial aid and student loans and the dine with faculty program.

But Gresely’s biggest goal is the Student Affairs Summit, which will bring together student leaders from across campus to talk about how to improve student life at SU. Tentative dates have been picked and an advisory board of student leaders has been created to plan the summit, Gresely said.

Gresely will be working on all of these initiatives as a second semester senior, something that worried many SA members when the presidential term was changed. But Gresely said he ran for president fully understanding what was involved and said he’s excited about his last semester as president.

“Because we know that it’s our last semester, we have a bigger drive to accomplish what we want to do,” he said. “So we’re holding people much more accountable.”

Lopez, the vice president, also isn’t worried about being burnt out, and she said in an email that the extra semester has given her and Gresely more time to work on initiatives that require extensive planning. It has also allowed her to redefine the role of the vice president as the person who acts as an intermediary between the assembly and the cabinet, Lopez added.

Allie Curtis, who graduated last year and was president of the 57th session, said having three semesters to implement goals and ideas would certainly have been helpful.

“Everyone always comes in with a lot of great ideas and different things they want to do, but it’s hard to implement them in that period of time, especially when your full-time job really is being a student,” she said.

With the changes to the president’s term, Curtis said she thinks younger members may run for president. Before becoming president, Curtis was vice president under former SA president Dylan Lustig and she said the two started planning their campaign during the spring of their freshman year. They ran in the fall of their sophomore year but if the terms had been different, Curtis said they probably would have run a semester earlier.

Adrianna Kam, a senior who served as chair of the Board of Elections and Membership for the past two semesters, said she would like to see younger students run but added that it’s a good idea to serve on a campaign team and observe an SA election before deciding to run.

Younger assembly members have typically been able to get more SA experience by working hard and earning a cabinet position, Kam said. But because Gresely has chosen many cabinet members from outside SA, not all these representatives have gotten that opportunity, she said. While it can be good to choose cabinet members from outside SA, Kam said, doing this can also make the cabinet positions less prestigious.

Aysha Seedat, director of student life, is the only cabinet member to stay in her position for all three semesters. After she got the position, Seedat said she decided to forgo studying abroad and make a commitment to running the Student Life committee for three semesters.

Seedat had never been in SA before becoming director of student life, so having an extra semester allowed her more time to transition into SA. Many of the same people have been on her committee for the past three semesters, which has helped with consistency and getting initiatives accomplished, she said.

This semester, Seedat said she hopes to wrap up an initiative she started during her first semester: allowing transfer students to participate in Greek life during their first semester on campus. The committee will also continue to work on getting heat lamps in South Campus bus stops and installing more charging stations on campus, Seedat said.

“We’re all really excited to set a precedent and be remembered in the books as this was the (session) that was three semesters long and look how much work got done,” she said.

Published on January 12, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta