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Syracuse University’s Student Association announced the launch of its new professional clothing donation initiative at Monday evening’s meeting.

SA also announced details for the annual Spring Into Action event set to commence on Wednesday as a series of volunteer opportunities for students to give back to the Syracuse community. Jack McCarty, SA’s chair of community engagement and government affairs, said SA will share more information via social media starting on Monday and continuing throughout the week to encourage more SU students to get involved.

McCarty added that SA needs more student volunteers to help with specific planned events like food drive distribution and street clean ups. He also encouraged SA members to share details on social media and about the event with a goal of getting as many volunteers as possible.

David Bruen and Adia Santos, SA’s president and vice president, announced the official launch of the Career Closet, which is SA’s first planned effort to facilitate professional clothing donations for undergraduate students. The two also discussed partnerships for the event, as well as logistics of the clothing distribution set to take place in the days following the event.

Aside from its upcoming volunteer service opportunities, SA will hold two additional events in the Schine Student Center on Wednesday to collect feedback from SU students on campus issues like sustainability, Bruen and Santos said.

The first event, an initiative titled “No Problem Too Small,” was launched in October 2022 as a forum where students can speak one-on-one with SA members about campus concerns.

For the second event on Wednesday, SA will also host a town hall with Bruen and SA Comptroller Dylan France, SU’s two undergraduate representatives for the university’s Board of Trustees, who plan to submit a spring 2023 semester report on student concerns to the board. SA last hosted a town hall on March 28.

Following up on its conversation in last week’s meeting, SA passed a bill which expanded stipend pay for positions within the association, including for the speaker pro tempore and vice president of academic affairs. The approval of the bill means more SA members who hold its specified positions will be paid for their work.

Some SA members raised questions about why some members qualified for a stipend expansion over others who put in a similar number of hours into SA, including in roles like the student advocate. William Treloar, SA president-elect and current speaker of the assembly, said the outlined positions in particular end up contributing a lot more time to SA than they are technically required to, as opposed to other positions.

“Most of the roles (added to the stipend), you have to put in far more office hours than what is required of you,” Treloar said. “We lower these hours to set the stipend at a specific rate that would then be paid out.”

Other business:

In recognition of Earth Month, SA highlighted upcoming events like the Tuesday afternoon campus conversation with Tom Steyer, a billionaire, former presidential candidate in 2020 and climate activist. SA is also hosting an Earth Day-themed Clothing Swap on April 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Schine 128.

SA elected members Richard Maj, Dylan France and Tanner Boshart to its senate.

The Academic Affairs Committee for SA is planning to host a new ‘study space’ that will provide tutoring for finals week and specifically target first-year students. Some of the courses that will have tutors include classes in areas like genetics, chemistry and philosophy.

Published on April 11, 2023 at 1:44 am

Contact Roxanne: rmboychu@syr.edu