Though only mentioned briefly in official business, Homecoming seemed to be on everyone’s mind at Case Western Reserve University’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) General Assembly this past Tuesday, Sept. 28. USG has had a large hand in the preparations for this weekend, which features the Stephanie Tubbs-Jones Race for Education 5K, the Homecoming Parade, and the football game against Allegheny College. USG will be giving away hot cider, doughnuts and cowbells during the game in the courtyard around Village House 7.
USG president Minh-Tri Nguyen began committee reports with an announcement about the Student State of the University Address, which will be on Wednesday, Oct. 20 at 6 p.m (insert location here, I’ll let you know when Minh-Tri gets back to me). Nguyen invited students to voice “any items of concern that you would like for me to suggest to the president (Snyder).”
In a meeting with the Residence Hall Association, USG vice president Divya Aggarwal learned that the corner across from the Village Starbucks is going to be repaved soon. Aggarwal also informed the assembly that the request for personal alarms to be provided for free again in the North and Southside area offices has been granted.”
Vice president of Information Technology Kelly Maloney drew praise for her report that student groups will soon have an alternative to hosting their websites on Filer. According to Maloney, it is just one of the benefits of a whole new IT service that will allow students and faculty to access a free individual virtual machine that they could then use for website hosting, testing out new technology projects, and classes that require a very specific software configuration. It will also consolidate the number of servers used. Once it is implemented, CWRU will be the only school in the country to offer such a comprehensive and sustainable service. Vice president of Finance Colin Downey added that IT Services and CollegiateLink will be meeting about the current timing issue and hope to fix it soon.
Daniel Gallo, representative from Storrs House, informed the assembly that the freshman caucus is planning an outreach event for Saturday’s Homecoming football game. As advertised in Leutner Commons earlier this week, they will be painting faces before the game from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Matt Fernandes, a representative from the School of Engineering, also announced that the engineering caucus will be holding a cornhole event for students and faculty in late October.
During new business, the general assembly elected sophomore Yewon Lee as the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing representative to USG. In her speech, she said her main goal is to increase communication between nursing students and USG. She stated she “realized how critical communication between students, faculty, and USG is to the well-being of the nursing students, whether it be financially, socially, or academically, ” last year while acting as a representative to the Undergraduate Student Nurses Association,
Open forum was livelier than in previous weeks, as representatives expressed concerns about the inefficiency of the sprinklers on Northside and the dangerous entrance/exit area of the Veale parking garage. Representatives also gave overwhelmingly positive feedback about the possibility of Thwing Study-Over being moved to the Sunday before final exams.