By Patrick Snyder

Student government exists to help connect students to the resources they need to make their experience at Mac meaningful. We work with all facets of student life, from academics to student organizations to wider community involvement. Over the next few weeks, we hope to use this space to introduce specific projects and themes that we’re tackling this semester. I hope you’ll take the time to read what we’ve got in store, but that’s only half of it. We also hope you’ll give us your comments, criticisms, and new ideas, because student government is only as strong as the feedback we receive. I’ll use this space now to briefly touch on some of the big projects underway. As many are aware, over the summer MCSG helped lead a campaign to defeat the Student Housing Ordinance proposed by the St. Paul City Council. While we were unsuccessful, we are using this as an opportunity to critically reflect on our role within our immediate neighborhood. We hope to take concrete steps to increase dialogue between neighbors and students in order to promote a stronger sense of shared community. On the communications front, our Student Services and Relations Committee (SSRC) has been hard at work improving the functionality of our social media. With a fresh website, active Facebook group, and Twitter account, we hope to increase transparency, provide more feedback channels, and make it easier to connect students to the resources they need. But we need YOU to join our group on Facebook and follow our Twitter first! In the realm of Academics, our Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) is constantly adjusting and improving our textbook reserve program, which helps students offset the cost of textbooks by making popular textbooks available for checkout in the library. The AAC is also actively engaged with the College’s Study Away Review Committee, which seeks to comprehensively evaluate study away programs and better define learning objectives. Our Student Organizations Committee (SOC) and Financial Affairs Committee (FAC) are working together to improve our communication with student organizations so that our interactions are more conversational and less adversarial. To this end, we’re working to establish liaisons between FAC members and student organizations leaders, as well as encouraging student organizations to reflect on their events through the Org Event Follow-up Form launched this Fall. Both the SOC and FAC, and all of MCSG, exist to support student organizations and help them grow, collaborate, and contribute meaningfully to campus. The Community Chest, a program which allows any student regardless of org affiliation to apply for funding, is also active this year. The SSRC is planning some reforms to the program to make it more accessible; these reforms are coming within the next few weeks. And Program Board, MCSG’s popular cousin, continues to put on well-planned and well-attended events, and has worked to collaborate with student organizations. We’re excited about what the rest of this year has in store for MCSG, and we hope you are too. But we can only grow to be more effective and responsive if we hear from you. refresh –>