By Gabriella Lucci
Staff Writer
Student Government recognized a new organization on campus and listened to a presentation by College President Kathryn Foster regarding a potential strategy plan at their general body meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 19, in the Education Building Room 115.
Foster discussed her strategy to make improvements at the College, outlining a possible course of action.
Areas that Foster hopes to improve include campus diversity, broadening access to the College’s education and becoming more prominent in the region.
Diversifying the College in size, scope and access could include capping first-year undergraduate enrollments while increasing transfer student and graduate enrollments, as well as increasing the enrollment of students from different backgrounds, Foster said. The College could also look to reduce out-of-state costs, making it more accessible to everyone.
According to Foster, differentiating the College based on strengths, rather than weaknesses, would be another improvement. This would mean focusing on where the College is already strong and continuing to improve those areas, rather than trying to improve weaker areas.
“When you differentiate, you’re directing your resources to what are your true strengths,” Foster said. “Take everything that may be an A or A-minus about your organization and you make it into an A-plus, and by doing that you’ve differentiated yourself from others.”
Foster also hopes to focus on the College’s standing in the larger region and state. She noted that collaborating and making connections with neighboring communities could have a much larger impact on the outside world.
“In the world going forward, being alone and not having allies or not having collaborators would be a very dangerous place and could jeopardize our future,” Foster said.
She also emphasized that these are suggestions about what the campus community needs to be talking about.
Foster will be presenting the entire plan to the campus community on Monday, Feb. 24 at 3:30 p.m. and Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 9 a.m. in the Education Building Room 212.
The Surf and Beach Club presented on why they should be a recognized organization on campus. With a majority of the general body votes being in favor of the club’s recognition, the club is officially a recognized organization.
After being presented at the last general body meeting, the Ad-Hoc Committee, which aimed to re-evaluate the College’s policies surrounding previously incarcerated faculty and students, was then voted on and passed unanimously.
Student Trustee Chris Driscoll presented a new bill to clarify the regulations for voters to write-in a candidate for Student Government elections. It would no longer require students to submit the email of the person being written in for elections. If this bill is passed, voters would only need to provide the first and last name of the write-in and email the Election Chair 72 hours before the polls open. The original bylaws for a write-in candidate stated that a candidate has the option to be written-in and if they had enough votes, they would be elected. In the new bill, a minimum of 10 percent of the votes is required for the write-in to be elected.
The bill will be voted on at the next general meeting.
