Freshmen-focused Salvatore keeps thinking of his roots

Financing, French, freshmen and fall break.

These are a few of Joe Salvatore’s favorite… Financing, French, freshmen and fall break.

These are a few of Joe Salvatore’s favorite things — or, at least, a few of the important aspects of the Student Government Board member’s life.

The financing and French dual-major first served SGB as the Freshmen Affairs Committee’s chair, and he has continued to serve the younger Pitt undergrads during his time on board.

As the committee chair, Salvatore started an internship program that let freshmen work under board members to learn more about SGB and its daily efforts. After being elected to the board last fall, during his sophomore year, Salvatore worked with his committee chair successor to increase the span of the program. Now, first-year students can intern not only with SGB members, but with other student groups’ leaders as well.

Salvatore, an Erie native, added that he is working to get freshmen more involved earlier in the school year. Many freshmen don’t get involved with SGB until November, he said, and he hopes that with programs such as a Meet the Board picnic, incoming students will get a chance to learn more about SGB early on, so that they too can become active students.

He also suggested starting a weekly or biweekly series of meetings for freshmen that would feature administrators and, perhaps, the SGB president, to teach students how to become active on campus.

Former board members who attempted to establish a fall break at Pitt have failed. But Salvatore said he has done something that many others didn’t: during his term: he compiled a report comparing Pitt’s schedule with about 60 other American colleges and universities. At the last academic calendar committee meeting in the spring, Salvatore presented his findings to its members, including professors and department heads.

“[It was] very well received,” he said. He added, though, that he found it difficult to get completely through to a group of professors when describing the need for a break before Thanksgiving Day vacation.

Adding a fall break to the calendar year takes time and, if it were approved, would probably not affect students for at least two years, since the calendar is made several years in advance. But with winter break being cut down to about 19 days this year, the need for a few additional days off is important, Salvatore said.

With issues like Pitt’s partnership/non-partnership with the United States Student Association becoming hot topics for the board, focusing on what each individual board member set out to do during his or her campaign is rather difficult, Salvatore said. When coming into office, each person has many ideas that he or she wants to work on, but when unexpected or unplanned issues come up and consume a lot of time, such issues divert attention from each individual’s campaign goals.

And though Salvatore might not have planned on USSA taking up such a large portion of the board members’ time this year, he doesn’t think it’s going to go away any time soon. USSA will always be an issue, he said, since people are always willing to fight for it.

And since the final vote on the matter in the spring came up as a 4-4 tie, with President Brian Kelly declining to cast the determining vote, it will come up as an issue for the current board, Salvatore said. The USSA issue could also play a role in the fall-term elections for the next board members.

Salvatore has not thought about whether or not he will run for re-election in November, he said.

Another important issue for the board to work through will be the reallocation of the student activities fee. With SGB gaining more control over the fee, and with a larger amount of money to allocate, the board will hopefully work toward creating a more lenient policy, Salvatore said. Such policies that serve just to save money, including the rule that allows club sports to receive no more than $2,000 a year for competition, may be lifted or changed, he said.

Salvatore added that he’d also like larger groups, such as WPTS and the Pitt Program Council, to get enough money to serve more students. He’d like WPTS to receive enough money to afford new equipment, to increase its service area and to have the technology to broadcast live on the Internet. Fall Fest, held annually by PPC, could also benefit from more money — with a larger budget, the organization might be able to bring in better bands for the Bigelow Boulevard concert.