New Board plans how to complete initiatives

If the members of the new Student Government Board complete their initiatives, Pitt’s club… If the members of the new Student Government Board complete their initiatives, Pitt’s club sports teams will practice on campus, the roofs of Pitt’s buildings will become more green and students will enjoy easier access to the Waterfront.

Of course, this isn’t all that the newly elected president and eight Board members hope to accomplish during their terms. But if the hopes are to become a reality, the Board members all agree that they must work together.

The student body elected James Landreneau to serve as the 2012 Student Government Board president on Nov. 17. He and the Board members will be inaugurated on Thursday, Jan. 5, in the Lower Lounge of the William Pitt Union. And then the collaboration begins.

“I want to make sure the group is a cohesive group,” said Landreneau, a senior chemical engineering major.

The Board will spend the first weekend of the spring semester at an off-campus retreat, which is meant to make sure the Board members are “on the same page” when it comes to completing their initiatives, Landreneau said.

The Board will also choose ad hoc committees at the retreat. These committees are added to the three standing committees — elections, judicial and allocations — included in the SGB Constitution. In 2011, the Board chose to add committees such as academic affairs, environmental and governmental relations.

Landreneau said that on Jan. 9, applications for SGB committee chairs will come out. He hopes to have the chairs of the committees seated by the third week of January.

Also during that month, Landreneau said that he will continue to work on former President Molly Stieber’s Allocations 101 program, with the change that he hopes to shift more of the responsibility for the program’s success to the Allocations Committee rather than the participating student groups.

The Allocations 101 program informs student groups about the allocations process. The incoming allocations chair, Mike Nites, will set the date, time and location for the seminar.

The Board members all know each other through the campaigning process, but many of the Board members were friends before running for a spot on the SGB.

The new SGB president said that his ties to Board member Gordon Louderback go back to Pitt’s PALS organization. Louderback succeeded Landreneau as the PALS president.

Louderback said that Landreneau is “kind of a mentor to me. Not just through campaigning but [through] other on-campus activities.”

He said that the new SGB was already talking about altering the room reservation system, but wanted students’ perspective, and research has been done on implementing wireless Internet service in the dorms.

Louderback also plans on establishing more green roofs — roofs that have vegetation growing on them — on top of Pitt buildings. He plans to meet with the 2011 Environmental Committee Chair Rebecca Schroeder to discuss the green roofs.

Prior to his freshman year, Louderback met fellow Board members Olivia Armstrong and Alex Murdoch at the summer program Pitt Odyssey.

Murdoch, a junior, could not be reached for further comment.

Armstrong is a junior studying exercise sciences, and said that she believes she will complete her three initiatives early in the year.

She said that she has spoken with administrators about shuttles and student media, but she would not say specifically who she spoke with. Armstrong has not spoken with the administration about online allocations requests, but said that she has spoken with former and incoming Board members about the initiative.

Because Armstrong believes her initiatives will be finished quickly, she said that she plans on helping other Board members complete their projects.

“I am looking forward to working with the Board members,” Armstrong said. “Sometimes you need more than one Board member to help each other out [with initiatives].”

Armstrong said she will work with Board Member Natalie Rothenberger on increasing both the amount of money students receive from selling their textbooks and the total number of books The Book Center buys back.

Rothenberger, a sophomore studying political science and philosophy, interned for Stieber during the fall 2010 semester.

She spoke with Dave Robinson, Pitt’s Assistant Director for Enterprise Strategic Planning and Architecture, about the advertising initiative last semester, and the duo collaborated to form the Student Technology Advisory Committee.

Computing Services and Systems Development (CSSD) will run the committee that will allow students to present ideas to the department for technological improvements on campus.

But Rothenberger said that her other two goals will take longer to complete, and she hopes to have Board support for the textbook buyback initiative.

“This is a huge project … I know this is something I can’t tackle on my own,” she said. “Eight heads are better than one, so I’m hoping we can all work together.”

Whereas Armstrong pledged to work with Rothenberger on textbook buyback, Board member Megan McGrath has plans to work with Rothenberger on student advertising.

McGrath, a junior, hopes to erect a structure for student advertising, much like the fence at Carnegie Mellon University. She also plans to contact businesses and propose sponsorship for the Waterfront shuttle like the Target shuttle at the beginning of the 2011 fall semester.

“I’m not only excited to work on my projects, but I want to reach out to students and find out what they are

interested in,” she said.

Board member Halim Genus, a junior Africana studies and political science major, also wants more students involved in SGB decisions and projects.

“I’d like to make [student organizations] aware of decisions that are on the table … I know how frustrating it can be to be outside of the decision-making process,” Genus said. “I plan to, in a very informal way, go to student organizations’ meetings. I plan to take my own initiatives to them.”

Like Genus, incoming Board member and junior Julie Hallinan also emphasized working with students as a priority during her term.

“I want students to know they can come talk to me … I’m always approachable and I am here working for the students,” she said. “I want them to know they can hold me accountable.”

She plans to talk to Sodexo and the administration about a potential meal plan rollover initiative and reach out to the political student organizations such as the Pitt College Democrats and Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honors society, about educating student voters.

Zoe Samudzi, a sophomore political science major and incoming Board member, said that the first thing she will do when she takes office is figure out who she needs to talk to to put her initiatives in motion.

She said that she will work with student organizations to create the forum she plans on forming, but she is uncertain what groups are interested. For both her amnesty week and resource manual initiatives, she plans to start working with the administration.

Samudzi echoed Landreneau’s hope for a collaborative Board.

“We have become great friends because we were forced to be around each other,” she said. “We are all pretty friendly with each other, and I think we will have a pretty cohesive Board.”

An overview of each candidate’s initiatives:

James Landreneau

Institute an SGB liaison system for student clubs

Create a monthly Pitt town hall forum

Establish an on-campus leadership summit for all student leaders

Olivia Armstrong

Utilize social media to connect students and the administration

Implement online allocations requests

Increase shuttles to South Oakland, decreasing student reliance on SafeRider

Halim Genus

Establish short-term community service projects sponsored by SGB

Construct marked shuttle stops for shuttle routes

Add a second Pitt Make a Difference Day in the spring

Improve the career fair

Meal-plan roll over after the end of the semester

Increase student voter turnout in local and national elections

Gordon Louderback

Reconstruct the reservation desk for student organizations

Offer wireless Internet service in dorm rooms

Implement more green roofs on top of Pitt’s buildings

Megan McGrath

Implement weekend shuttles from campus to the Waterfront

Increase the means of advertising utilizing my.pitt.edu and a physical structure

Bring back old Pitt traditions and implement new ones

Alex Murdoch

Allow guests’ state IDs to be used for swiping into the residence halls

Increase the number of businesses that accept Panther Funds

Facilitate an agreement that club sports can use on-campus facilities to practice

Natalie Rothenberger

Increase the remuneration for textbooks bought back by The Book Center

Create a student escort system

Implement an advertising feature on my.pitt.edu

Zoe Samudzi

Create a forum for student organizations to encourage co-sponsorship of events

Compile a resource manual for students

Implement an amnesty week before finals