StuCo pres. imparts plans

Student Council President (StuCo) Manish Gala announced the council's goals for the upcoming school year in the areas of Homewood student affairs, academic affairs and social programming.

By organizing StuCo in a more efficient manner, Gala hopes to enforce more plans and increase interaction among the various committees, fellow members and general student body.

"One of the biggest pushes in social programming is the Hopkins Entertainment Pass," Gala said. "By collecting funds beforehand, the council will have more time to plan for events, providing more opportunities and better events for the students."

In addition, the entertainment pass will "provide frequent, better-quality social events on campus," according to Gala, such as more club nights, free concerts, renowned speakers and entertainment acts -- all without burning a hole in the average student's budget.

"When students purchase the pass, they will receive a free ticket to upcoming events such as Rusted Root and Ben Folds," Gala said. "These social opportunities will enable students having different interests to meet and have fun, a contrast from school activities."

By raising the issue with the Office of Academic Affairs, professors and departments, Gala also hopes to increase awareness in exam recycling by promoting an open system where past exams will be put on the Web.

"Since exam scores may sometimes not be connected to how much studying the student has done, but rather, if he had the proper materials, the council will try to correct these imbalances," Gala said. "[However], exams will have no attached answers and will be restricted to the Hopkins community."

Another goal of StuCo is to develop the arts program, in which students will receive an arts certificate when they have completed a certain level of art courses.

"[The arts certificate] is tangible and a form of recognition that will encourage the student to achieve in the arts," Gala said.

Moreover, council will continue to push the student/faculty meal program, where faculty will be reimbursed after taking three students out to dinner per week. With the support of Dean of Students Susan Boswell, the goal is to enhance interaction between professors and students.

Since Garland Field will be turned into a parking lot, Gala hopes to make Eastern Field available to student groups for their outdoor activities and meetings. He plans to offer limited meal equiv in Levering Hall and advocate two committees: an Internet/IT committee and a diversity committee.

"Members in the Internet/IT committee will maintain the Web site about Student Council's events and try to resolve the issues with ResNet," Gala said. "I also want to see the diversity committee take off and have more minority groups speak their interests on council."

To increase interest and membership in StuCo, Gala would like to implement a mentoring program, in which prospective StuCo members will shadow an experienced StuCo member, much like a training program.

Even though StuCo has planned many events for the upcoming school year, Gala believes that a lot more will be accomplished due to increased starting finances and members' enthusiasm and motivation.

"Our goals are more realistic. We want to fix the Onothing to do on campus' complaint," Gala said.

StuCo Vice-President of Institutional Relations Noel De Santos is also optimistic about the upcoming school year.

"This year will be one of the best Student Council years ever. We did so much preparation over the summer, so we can't help but succeed," De Santos said. "Manish's leadership has been the biggest part of that.