Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

GUSA Begins Summer Agenda

While most students spend their summers away from the Hilltop, GUSA President Nate Tisa (SFS ’14) and Vice President Adam Ramadan (SFS ’14) hope to take advantage of these three months to accomplish items on their unofficial summer agenda.

Along with summer manager Alyssa Peterson (COL ’14), who serves as deputy chief of staff during the academic year, Tisa and Ramadan plan to tackle a variety of student issues, starting with student loan interest rates, which are set to double if Congress does not act by July 1.

After attending President Barack Obama’s speech — which called for young people to take action against the rise in student loan interest rates — at the White House on Friday, Tisa and Ramadan have developed a Georgetown University Student Association initiative for the next month before the legislative deadline.

The pair plans to reach out to student governments across the country to lobby against the interest rate rise, appealing to other student body presidents to write a joint letter against the hike. Through social media, petitions, emails and student group outreach, the GUSA executives hope to mobilize the Georgetown student body to lobby members of Congress to act before July 1.

“I feel like in most cases, GUSA doesn’t actually have a place to be involved in a lot of national issues,” Tisa said. “This issue, though, is something that directly affects students.”

Tisa said this national issue is especially important at Georgetown.

“It also tends to affect the students that have the most financial need the most, which is not good,” he said. “I think that this is one of those issues that GUSA has the responsibility to be involved in.”

More locally, the GUSA executives will prioritize increasing free speech on campus. During their GUSA campaign in February, Tisa and Ramadan called for a campus-wide free speech zone.

“Free speech is number one, and that is going to break down to a lot of components,” Tisa said. “In talking with students and student groups, we found that there’s a lot of different levels that affect the way [free speech] plays out on campus through student culture, where we might not always have an environment that fosters people expressing themselves to the fullest.”

One of those components will be the way student groups’ varying levels of access to space on campus affects free speech as well as the university’s free speech policy.

Tisa and Ramadan also plan to push for basic updates to campus facilities. The executives are working on a program that will allow students to check washing machine and dryer availability before doing their laundry and receive notifications when their laundry is done. Ramadan also hopes to gain approval to paint the concrete walls on MultiSport Facility and Yates Field House.

The pair will also promote continued efforts to ensure policy changes regarding neighborhood relations and the 2010 Campus Plan agreement are fair for both students and permanent residents.

“We are trying to form a lasting partnership … where we speak to neighbors directly about what their concerns are and have more of a dialogue with them that’s constructive and can help us work through other issues on campus,” Peterson said.

The executive cabinet and the Student Advocacy Office will also work to launch an iPhone application that contains the Code of Student Conduct by the end of the summer. The iPhone-friendly version of the code of conduct will be shortened to limit bureaucratic language and increase transparency, Tisasaid.

In addition, the summer agenda includes initiatives to foster diversity on campus, develop a disability peer-to-peer mentoring program, increase academic diversity, create a Georgetown-specific bike share program, explore the development of a GUSA judicial branch and enhance communication anddialogue between GUSA and the student body through social media.

With next year’s administrative staff set and less hectic faculty schedules during the summer, Tisa is optimistic that coordination and dialogue between GUSA and the administration will be more straightforward and easier.

“Now that we know what the staff is going to look like, we know what our mode of operation is going to be, we can start deciding not only what we want to do, but how we want Georgetown to look when we are done,” Tisa said. “We are already working pretty directly with administrators. I think now we just get to spend a lot more quality time with them.”

The unofficial summer agenda comes after the conclusion of the GUSA executive’s 40-day spring agenda, in which Tisa and Ramadan helped push to create the Office of Sustainability, find alternative space for student groups during the construction of the Healey Family Student Center and ease on-campus socializing restrictions, specifically the elimination of the one-keg limit for on-campus parties.

Leave a Comment
Donate to The Hoya

Your donation will support the student journalists of Georgetown University. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

More to Discover
Donate to The Hoya

Comments (0)

All The Hoya Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *