The retreat on Friday with President McDavis and other faculty members was awesome! I came away feeling really good, and very empowered; the voice of the students is really listened to and respected at Ohio University.

At the retreat the topics of employee morale, shared governance, communication to and among constituent groups and Ohio University’s image were discussed, as well as the student issues of programming dollars and retention. Molly and I presented some statistics that we had compiled, these numbers are not definite but we threw them out there so that we could compare ourselves with other institutions. Both Auburn University and the University of Akron have very steep numbers regarding programming dollars when compared to ours, ($2.2 million for Auburn, $701,000 for Akron), and this is clearly something that we should look more closely at. Currently we receive $480,838 per year.

Shared governance is alive and well at OU! We met with Classified Senate, Faculty Student Senate and Graduate Student Senate this week and discussed communication between faculty and students, as well as the community as a whole. We can definitely improve our communication this year. Commissioners, find an opportunity to talk to your constituents! They are who we need to be communicating more with. A lot of work is being put into how we communicate and how we network.

This week I met with Dr. Kent Smith and Elaine. We’re really excited about our new interns! Paul will talk more about this.

The Bobcat picture will be taken next Tuesday at 2 or 3 p.m. Who can make it at 2 p.m.? And at 3 p.m.? I will send a sign-up sheet around, we will choose whichever time is best for the majority of Senate members.  

The Day of Discourse is tomorrow in the rotunda of Walter.

I am passing around applications for the Standing Committees. If you’re interested, please take one. We are looking for five students and five alternates so that there will always be five students on the committees.  Please write down the ones you are interested in; come to me with any questions.  I have posted the roles of the committees; you can read over them at your leisure, they’re on the website. To be on these committees is a big responsibility! You represent the entire student body. Thanks!