SGB speaks to the administration for students

Each year, nine students are given $2.3 million with a simple directive: give it away. This is… Each year, nine students are given $2.3 million with a simple directive: give it away. This is the task of the Student Government Board.

SGB is made up of nine students — eight board members and a president — elected each year by their fellow students. In addition to its members, the Board is also made up of seven committees, including Community Outreach and Governmental Relations, which take on projects related to their specific fields. The purpose of the Board — whose office is located on the ninth floor of the William Pitt Union — is to act as a liaison between the administration and the student body.

SGB’s main responsibility is to dole out the Student Activities Fund, a $2.3 million pool derived from the $80 Student Activities Fee that each non-College of General Studies undergraduate student pays each semester.

Under the advice of the Allocations Committee, SGB meets publicly on Tuesday nights in Nordy’s Place to discuss how to allocate its funds to student organizations that have made requests. Clubs might request money to go to a conference or bring in a guest speaker. Club sports might ask for money to purchase new equipment or play in a tournament. SGB has the final say on how much, if any, money these student organizations receive.

But at the beginning of each SGB public meeting, Board members discuss their projects, which are aimed at improving students’ experiences at Pitt. Board members and committee chairpersons rattle off meetings they’ve attended, people they’ve talked to and progress they’ve made on their term projects.

These projects are what the Board members based their November campaigns on; they spend most of their time on the Board following through with these ideas. Improvements Board members have made in the past include implementing a GPS system on Pitt shuttles and establishing a resource center in the Hillman Library for tests such as the GRE, LSAT and MCAT.

“I find it essential to remember that the students elected us because of the ideas we had to help better the University,” Board member Natalie Rothenberger said.

In addition to the projects with which they campaigned, Board members pick up side projects during their terms. If a student comes in with a particular idea or concern, Board members may help get it addressed by the administration.

They also contribute to general SGB projects such as Pitt Day in Harrisburg and the new 1787 Letter Writing Campaign, a coordinated effort spearheaded by SGB President James Landreneau to encourage students to write to legislators about Pitt’s budget issue.

Individual Board members’ projects include that of Gordon Louderback, for example, who has been working on bringing wireless internet to the dorms since October of last semester — before he was elected to the Board.

“I wanted to get started early, so that if I got elected, I could hit the ground running,” Louderback said.

Louderback recently had a meeting with Kathy Humphrey, Pitt’s vice provost and dean of students, and was told to work on a proposal to present this summer.

Louderback said the biggest obstacles to the project have been cost and security, since it would be more difficult to crack down on illegal file sharing under a wireless system.

Board member Zoe Samudzi ran on the platform of establishing reading days during which students could prepare for finals at the end of each semester. She, too, has found the process slow.

Samudzi’s original idea was to create a mandate that professors could not assign any homework the week before finals. The administration told Samudzi that this would infringe upon faculty’s academic freedom — the right of professors to teach their classes how they see best. Samudzi altered her plan to give students the Thursday and Friday before finals weeks off so they can concentrate on their studies.

Samudzi tried to get the Academic Calendar Committee to convene a special meeting about the issue on April 18, but the discussion was postponed until the beginning of September.

“Hopefully we can try to come to some kind of agreement that will affect the upcoming year,” Samudzi said.

Board members Rothenberger and Megan McGrath both ran on a promise to give student organizations “a centralized advertising option on the my.pitt website,” Rothenberger said in an email.

They decided to work together on the issue and created — with the help of Computing Services and Systems Development — the Student Events Calendar, a platform for student groups to get the message out about their events. The calendar was added onto the my.pitt portal at the beginning of April.

“We are always looking for new ideas and helping students achieve their own projects,” Rothenberger said. “I invite everyone to stop by our office in the Union, get to know your Board members and get involved.”