Student Gov: Webinars, Diversity, and Student Fees

Helpful webinars, diversity in residence halls, student fee budgets and a student career ambassador were all discussed at this week’s student government meeting.

Here are the highlights:

Minnesota State University’s IT Solutions Department will soon launch a project called Microsoft March, a set of webinars and presentations that will teach students how to use various Microsoft programs. 

IT Solutions will also offer a similar version to help students obtain services from MSU called Ask Stomper. This service will help students find the answers they need and the people they need to contact within our campus community. An example of this would be the program showing students where the Financial Aid Office is located and the hours they are open. 

Assistant Director of Student Activities John Bulcock spoke about the student fees budget. He discussed how programs funded by student fees are currently working on creating their budgets for the next fiscal year. 

The Student Allocation Committee will hear from those groups over the next few weeks before passing recommendations to the Student Government. Once approved, the budget is then sent to President Davenport and to the MinnState Board for final approval. This will be an ongoing process with updates to come. 

Sen. Jack Wheeler told the Student Government he is using the Mavlife app to add a new discussion spot for departments of students and staff to post resources, ask questions and provide information to fulfill students’ basic needs.  

“This has been an ongoing project that should be implemented on students’ apps within the coming weeks,” Wheeler said. 

Sen. Audrey Hopwood told the Student Government she is working on spreading out more diversity amongst all the residential hall communities. She has been talking with Residential Life leaders about her concerns about the lack of representation within the residential halls and providing bias training when choosing the next Community Advisors.  

“It seems pretty segregated when it comes to diversity and I’m excited to be able to have it be more equal amongst all the residents,” Sen. Hopwood stated. 

Sen. Salim told the Student Government he is currently researching how many students of color are graduating from secondary schools. He is working within his college to help increase the number of students of color to graduate from higher level education. He is also working to make a Zoom social hour for graduate students to get to know each other within the graduate school community.  

Sen. Minahil Khan said she is pushing to provide a Student Career Ambassador to help students find internships and different jobs. She said she hopes to partner with the Career Development Center and leverage Maverick students who are knowledgeable about career development to help get the word about different career development to fellow students. 

Khan is also looking into forming a new Senator position for Technology Integration on campus to work with IT Solutions. This stemmed from the technology issues that took place this fall. 

Sen. Elsaadi talked about his work on creating student ambassadors for each college to help provide more information between students and the University and help gain information on what students need to succeed in their courses. 

Sen. Sarvesh Parte is working on providing closed captions for all classes and having all professors put their recorded lectures on D2L.