Diversity and Inclusion Committee: This spring semester has been an eventful one for diversity on the SLU Campus. This semester, working with Ashlee Downing and Sharon Rodriguez, the Intersectional Board of United Voices (IBUV) was established. The IBUV is a group of student leaders from a variety of organizations who share club progress and concerns. The committee also worked with the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion on improving bias incident reporting for students, as well as making the student body more aware of resources available for reporting. The committee is currently working on bringing a speaker on campus for the fall semester.
Canton Community Outreach Committee: The Canton Community Outreach Committee strives to bring St. Lawrence and the Canton Community together. The committee led two projects: the Deep Root Breakfast Club and the SLU Bar Tour. The Breakfast Club brings volunteers to the Deep Root Learning Center to cook breakfast for local students once a week. At the Bar Tour on April 16, roughly 120 SLU students went on a crawl of local bars from Pub 56 to The Hoot Owl. These events bring SLU students into the community and help businesses and schools in the community to grow.
Student Life Committee: The Student Life Committee has worked in collaboration with different departments to offer bi-weekly trips to Price Chopper, Walmart and Co-op/Purple Rice to all students on campus. From the innovation grant we received last year, we are also offering chargers to be borrowed from the Student Center. Along with these projects, we have also updated the Thelmothesian Society bulletin board, worked on the SLU Survival Guide and updated the club descriptions on the main SLU page.
Academic Affairs Committee: This semester, the Academic Affairs committee has been working with the Library to solve the ODY-DB book pile. The library has decided to absorb some of the current books into its pre-existing collection and get rid of the rest of them. They will no longer be accepting new book donations due to space constraints. We continue to represent the student body in bi-weekly Academic Affairs tripartite committee meetings with faculty and staff to advocate for the Student Body. We have also discussed working towards having the FYP program cross-listed as another course that could then count towards a student’s major or minor.
Arts and Entertainment Committee: Throughout this semester, the Arts and Entertainment committee worked with ACE to bring events on campus that will be open to all students to attend such as concerts, comedians and other events. Additionally, we organized our ongoing project of exhibiting students’ doodles in the student center to highlight how art is truly for everyone. By reaching out to the student body, clubs and staff, we promoted our project around campus so that enough submissions are sent. The doodles were exhibited in the student center blackboard on Wednesday, April 17.
Elections Committee: The committee worked hard to create six new amendments that created clarification for the campaigning and debate rules, along with making the Elections Chair a permanent position on the Junior Executive Board. We worked diligently with ACE and the Thelmo Executive Board to conduct a new election for Class Council, ACE President, Vice President and Secretary and the Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees position. Following two successful meet-the-candidates nights, we moved into the voting process and encouraged all of campus to participate in voting.
Safety and Security Committee: The Safety and Security committee worked with Director of Safety and Security Pat Gagnon and the Associate Dean of Student Life, Rance Davis to make amendments to the student handbook. These amendments included listing Juuls in the student handbook and prohibiting their use indoors, and prohibiting the use of all types of space heaters in residential areas. Furthermore, at the committee’s direction, security is looking into replacing cigarette disposal boxes with cigarette receptacle units that can be easily moved and placed 30 feet from buildings.
International Committee: The International Affairs Committee has been in constant communications with Victoria Lederer to create a networking platform among current international students and international alumni. The project would start as a Linkedin group with alumni that have graduated since 2014 and we are aiming to extend the list later. The committee also hosted an International Karaoke Night on March 28. The event was part of World Languages Week and was a total success. Around 50 people attended and the event even went a little longer than expected as people were having a great time and wanted to stay longer.