SUNY Buffalo State students are working to implement changes on campus for the upcoming years.

During the last United Student Government meeting, Trivet Jarmond, chair of the Student Welfare Committee, with the support of Muhammed Sumbundu, a college council student representative, met with the USG to gather data on students’ perspectives about the campus.

E-board members, senators and those that attended the meeting got a chance to comment on campus issues such as student parking, food on campus, advisor availability and usefulness.

Jarmond said that he received a good amount of information, but he understands that the views of the students who participated might be a little skewed and do not represent all of the Buffalo State population.

“To some people, we don’t even have a problem that needs to be fixed,” Jarmond said. “But to those that do believe that there is something that needs to be changed, then maybe we can allow some type of seed to be planted in people’s brains that we can just slowly start to change the culture of what some people perceive to be a problem.”

Eric Sauerzopf, president of USG, said that the idea was to bring thoughts and generate ideas for the end goal of improving the campus.

Together with Jarmond they plan to bring the results of the open discussion to the college Senate where administration, faculty and staff can find new ways to work towards this goal.

Adonis Kernen, executive vice president of USG, said that it would take time for the changes to be implemented. He said some of the students fighting for these changes would already have graduated, but that the plan was to gear students’ attitudes toward the next year of student government.

“We hope that down the road these effects, these changes will trickle down,” Kernen said. “We are in very economic constrains and we really do need to see how can we make changes that are physically sound but we can capitalize on.”

The Standards of Excellence, which are guidelines by which USG-funded student organizations must abide, will also be revised soon.

Serenity Smith, administrative vice president for campus affairs and government relations, is encouraging representatives from campus organizations to attend a final focus group to find a medium between the students’ need for autonomy and the guidelines imposed on them by USG and the administration.

Smith created focus groups to get group leaders and members to come together to recreate and implement new standards based on their advice, but so far no one has showed up to the focus groups.

“I wanted students to actually have their own voice,” Smith said. “So it’s not so much what USG wants from them, it’s what they want for themselves.”

With only one more focus group scheduled, Smith said that she will be sending out mass emails to try to get organizations to participate, but if they chose not to, it will be up to Smith and her committee to adjust the standards.

NOTES:

• Linxuan Wu was sworn in as new USG senator during Tuesday’s meeting.

• USG has booked Girl Code/Guy Code, a popular MTV comedy production, to perform on campus in early April.

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