Summer Update: Appointments, Committees, Plans, and Student Loan News

Hello all,

It has been a while since I have written to you from the President's Desk, but the Student Government at Concord University naturally slows down during the summer. As a matter of fact, I am the entire government during the summer, but considering that I am not on campus this summer, my actions are limited. I have asked Attorney General Lewis to look over day to day affairs in our government and report to me on anything that needs my attention. Besides that, I am continually planning for big things in the fall myself, and I hope to have a large agenda to show to the Executive Board during our planning stages for the fall before we go back to school.

Everyone knows that my administration thus far is going to be taking a small pay cut as well as pay half in keeping the library hours open longer, pending Senate approval. I look forward to seeing people be able to study longer and thus have more flexibility in the fall. By showing the administration that we will make use of our increased hours, we can persuade them to adopt a long term policy.

Besides the library issue, several new things have come up. As everyone knows, Marshall Campbell is now the Human Resources Director at Concord University. I applaud this selection of Dr. Aloia, for I feel that Marshall will do the job to the best of his ability, and he is undoubtedly the most qualified person for that position. Unfortunately, that leaves the SGA in a bit of a dilemma. It has traditionally been the role of the Student Center Director to be the SGA Staff Advisor. As a matter of fact, according to former President Noland, being an advisor to the SGA is a part of the job duties. Fortunately enough, I am going to be traveling to Concord whenever the hiring committee for the new Student Center Director takes place, and I will personally be a part of that university committee. I will make sure that I advocate for the person that I see fit. I am not yet sure who has applied, but I will be an effective voice for students. However, let it be known that I will not automatically select the Student Center Director for the staff advisor if I do not feel that that person might be the best fit for SGA. I have not yet spoken to Marshall about still being the staff advisor. We would all welcome him to return, but if he chooses not to, we have a dilemma on our hands. What I'm saying is that just because someone might be the Student Center Director might not mean that they be our official advisor. That person is likely to get the position, but if that person has known to have a bad record with SGA, I will be immensely skeptical in selecting that person. As a part of the job duties, the Student Center Director would have to advise the SGA, but that does not mean that that certain person would be the official advisor. With that said, I am also going to contact Dr. Brichford to see if he will represent the Faculty again, which I'm very sure that he will do.

Besides the Student Center Director committee, I am also serving on Coach Quick's Human Institutional Development advisory committee. During our initial meeting (we've had 1), most of the administration, the President of the Faculty, myself, and a few others discussed ways that the institution could work on obtaining funding so that it could avoid another tuition raise. There was not much of anything of interest for me to discuss beyond basic ways of reaching out to alumni and whatnot. I mentioned that it might be good for the committee to formulate a mission statement of what it hopes to achieve and then follow through with its plan. One possible thing that they might do is have high caliber weddings at University Point once it is completed. As a place to hold weddings, University Point could definitely rake in some cash for the University. Based on the committee, I, like Board Member Kearns, have complete confidence in Mr. Quick in this role. I think he is a very personable man who can communicate well with people. I believe that he will be very friendly with SGA, and it will undoubtedly be interesting to work with him during Higher Ed day this coming year (which will be an interesting thing for me to do as well, considering that I haven't even gotten to do that yet, considering my brother had a birthday during the last one).

Other things of minor interest--I have appointed Curtis Kearns and Vice President Bozman to serve on a summer university committee for Marshall Campbell to serve as student representatives in an advisory role similar to the one that I am serving on for Mr. Quick. I have also appointed Curtis to the Academic Dean search committee. Dr. Rowe is only in that job for an interim role, and Curtis will be looking for his permanent replacement. Considering that Curtis will be working with the Academic Dean in the future with policy, I thought he would be a great choice, and he will undoubtedly be our advocate behind closed doors. This is an example of a decision that I, the President, had to make during the summer while the Senate was not in session. Curtis will be confirmed for the full time role in the fall.

Judicial Reform planning is also getting underway. We managed to do a lot during the time that I chaired the committee last year as Attorney General. Several questions still loom over our Judicial Board though. We still have a few procedural issues we need to clear up. Full restrictions is still a faulty system of sanctions that cannot be enforced, and the community service plan we made last year has the ability to fall on its face from a lack of service opportunities if many people get sanctioned to it. We still need something else--we just have to decide what. There's a lot the committee still needs to do. During the first meeting of the year, I plan on re-starting this ad-hoc committee, and I will most likely appoint Attorney General Bill Lewis as the chair. Although Bill has not yet put his feet in Judicial waters, he will learn quickly, and I feel that he will be an effective moderator of debate, similar to the hands off approach that I took to leading the committee last year. As the President, I serve on all committees, so I will be advocating for more reform behind closed doors. Since I am no longer the Chair, I also look forward to putting more of my own ideas out there.

One last thing I wanted to make students aware of is loans. I know that many students have to take loans, especially with tuition raises and whatnot. Although I have had a full scholarship as an ALEF fellow, there is the possibility of even me losing my scholarship this year due to issues that have arisen within ALEF that I will not get into, despite the fact I have a great GPA, due to some issues that I won't discuss. With that being said, I have done some research on loans. If you are currently thinking of taking a loan for the fall, do NOT do it until after July. Interest rates are going down to an all time low due to things going on in Obama's stimulus. If you want to read for yourself, check out this link:

http://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/525-interest-rates-on-federal-education-loans-to-drop-july-1

One more thing--I have been asked to look into getting a boxing speed bag and a boxing bag for the fitness center. More news on that later--it completely slipped my mind until I went looking through some e-mails. I will contact the appropriate channels.

Until I have further news, cheers. I hope all Concordians have a good summer, and I look forward to working for you in the fall. Change and progress is coming soon, August 2009.