Pittsburgh college students hope to create inter-collegiate council

At the peak of the tuition tax debate in December, students regularly attended City Council… At the peak of the tuition tax debate in December, students regularly attended City Council meetings to protest the tax.

Daniel Jimenez doesn’t want that to end.

“Before the tuition tax came up, no students were going down there,” the president of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly said.

In an impromptu meeting yesterday on Carnegie Mellon University’s Collaborative Innovation Center, a group of student leaders met with Dan Gilman, City Councilman Bill Peduto’s chief of staff, to discuss the creation of a student advisory committee to City Council.

Jimenez, Student Government Board president Charlie Shull, SGB member David Petrone and CMU student body president Rotimi Abimbola, hope to create a student organization that will meet with City Council members for a set number of times each year.

Shull and Jimenez said that they’d like all of the higher learning institutions to be involved and the responsibility to fall on the elected presidents. Each president would have one vote, but schools with large graduate programs will receive another vote when making decisions on issues that pertain to students, such as public transportation and rental issues.

Jimenez said he wanted this organization to be official and written into the city code to assure the organization’s longevity and the City Council’s commitment to listen to the group.

“I just don’t think students will go to city hall in two years,” he said.

Gilman responded, “Students will respond to the issues, not the structure,” adding that, “What I think is bad is including yourself in the city code and introducing yourself to politics.”

Gilman explained that it’s unlikely that all of the council members as well as the mayor would agree to include a committee in the city code without being able to appoint people. He said that the group doesn’t have to be legislated to be recognized by City Council.

Abimbola made it clear that the organization would form even if it’s not written into the city code.

Gilman said that a clause could be written into the city code that would ensure the City Council would meet with the student organization routinely.

Jimenez has been communicating with other council members about the continued discussion of student issues. Seven of the nine council members agreed to attend the Graduate and Professional Student Association’s Pancakes and Politics event on Feb. 16, he said.

Jimenez, who is graduating in four months, and Shull said that they hope to have a written constitution for the organization and legislation to present to City Council before the end of the semester.