Student Senate hosted its annual Speak Up event Monday, allowing students to directly voice concerns to the administration, all while enjoying free food.
All students were encouraged to attend the event held in the student center ballroom on March 11. It featured administration from a variety of departments and offices, including university president Gary Roberts.
Students were given notecards and asked to submit their questions to student senators, who added them to the moderator and Speaker of the Assembly Andrew Yohanan’s list.
Throughout the hour-long event, a variety of issues were discussed ranging from rain pooled sidewalks, the cost and construction of the Business and Engineering Complex, the future of Greek life and the recent issue of campus Wi-Fi.
“We are working on [fixing] it,” said chief information officer, Zach Gorman. “And I do want to address that we do not have plans for outside wireless. We only ensure Wi-Fi connection inside each campus building, not anywhere on campus.”
Vice president for student affairs, Nathan Thomas, answered many of the questions, including one regarding the smoke-free campus initiative.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a senate event without a smoke-free campus question,” Thomas said. “[The resolution] is on my desk and, among other things, it isn’t a priority. We still have a lot of details to work out.”
Student senator Isaiah Harlan, a sophomore political science major, attended the event. He said he believes the event was a good way to promote transparency between the students and the administration.
“I would definitely say it was a success,” Harlan said. “If you looked around the room, every single seat was full and there were so many questions we didn’t even get the time to answer all of them.”
Senior medical laboratory science major Emily Wang saw this as an issue, believing one hour wasn’t enough.
“I think the event definitely could have been longer,” said Wang. “They could hold events throughout the year with administration instead of just squeezing it all into an hour.”
Within the hour, the administration answered about 12 questions.
“Overall, I thought [the event] went really well,” Harlan said. “It was a really good way for the students to connect with the administration.”