The GUSA-sponsored Student Life Report 2011 Committee, which will evaluate the reform of advisory boards, university bureaucracy and intellectual life outside the classroom, accepted applications this past week.

The group aims to assess student life on the Hilltop by reviewing the Georgetown Programming Board and the five club funding advisory boards — the Student Activities Commission, the Media Board, the Advisory Board for Club Sports, the Performing Arts Advisory Council and the Center for Social Justice’s Advisory Board for Student Organizations.

The group will collect student input through surveys, interviews and comparative studies with comparable universities.

According to Shuo Yan Tan (SFS ’12), Georgetown University Student Association’s director of funding and administration reform, the comparative studies section of the report will include visits to other schools for context as well as input from members of the advisory boards.

“[Comparative trips] will allow us to draw on best practices by other schools and see if they can work for our campus,” he said.

Tan stressed that including members of other boards on the committee would be beneficial, rather than a conflict of interest.

“Obviously, we don’t want a Media Board representative to be reviewing the Media Board, but we are encouraging board members to apply and review another board and do a comparison review,” he said.

The last student life report, conducted in 1999, attempted to address many of the problems students at Georgetown still face today, according to Tan.

“If you read it, you’ll realize some things haven’t changed very much, which is unfortunate. But a lot of things have really changed,” he said.

The 1999 report focused on funding, student space and bureaucracy. Included in the final document were recommendations for creating a Club Sports advisory board, online classroom requests for student groups holding events and free GPB movies on the weekends. While some of these goals have been realized, many — like recommendations for increased student space and a new student union building — have not.

Student space has recently been a hot topic of debate, spurred by the recent recommendation for the Student Activities Fee Endowment money to be distributed by GUSA for a student space in Healy Hall.

Student space will not be a main focus of the 2011 report however, according to Tan. The committee will use the earlier report created by the Student Space Working Group, which began its efforts in 2008, as a resource instead.

Students hope that the creation of the Student Life Report will help solve some of the perennial issues Georgetown students face. Tyler Anyan (COL’14) was intrigued by the idea of comparative trips.

“I mean, things aren’t perfect here and the allocation of funds isn’t perfect, so it would be nice to see what other universities are doing and try and bring that here,” Anyan said.

He also thought that having students, rather than the administration, lead the investigation would strengthen the committee’s findings.

“It’s by the students for the students. I love that,” he added.