A unique mix of general assembly elections and team building activities dominated the Student Association’s Monday night meeting. 

All five candidates who went up for election to the general assembly were approved after several rounds of questioning. The meeting was held at 7:30 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium.

Patricia D’Amore, a sophomore international relations major, was one of the students elected to the assembly during the meeting. She emphasized her involvement as a resident adviser as well as being a member of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity.

Abigail Zambrana, a freshman political science major, discussed her perseverance in graduating from a Los Angeles high school deemed to be a ‘drop-out factory,’ a high school where 50 percent of students did not graduate. She advocated the creation of a student activity fair in the spring to make it easier for students entering Syracuse University for the first time to get involved on campus.

‘I think it would be amazing,’ she said. ‘I know that being involved has always changed my life, so I’d like to make a difference.’

Also among members elected to the assembly were Robert Moldafsky, a sophomore architecture major, and Mapule Greene-Ntloedibe, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Greene-Ntloedibe briefly talked about her involvement as the community council representative for Booth, Kimmel and Marion halls as well as her desire to make SU a better place for all students.

Moldafsky called for greater overall security outside of Slocum Hall. He talked about an initiative for the area to be constantly monitored.

‘We’ve had a huge problem with burglaries,’ he said. ‘What tends to happen is security will heighten after a burglary, however, after that it will sometimes slack off and another one will happen.’

Ngawang Thokmey, a junior international relations major, discussed his personal triumph of learning English as a second language. He later advocated a unique student initiative aimed at lowering the cost of textbooks for students by holding talks with individual professors.

‘Everyone knows that it’s really expensive,’ he said. ‘I was thinking about working with professors and creating a system that reduces the price or actually getting away from the system where we have to go to the bookstore.’

The second half of Monday night’s meeting involved a unique series of team building activities.

President Lustig said he felt the experience was beneficial to SA members who may not be entirely familiar with whom they are working

‘It’s something that I think we need,’ Lustig said in an interview after the meeting. ‘We need these people to know each other on a more personal level. Yeah, they know the person they sit next to, but do they really know the person they sit across from a couple levels over?’

The activities were facilitated by David Kelly, a student leadership trainer who conducts similar events at various schools across the nation.

The team building activities included one-on-one interviews with SA members, constructing towers out of Dixie cups and a collective ‘Go Orange!’ chant.

Kelly was very happy about the level of member involvement he saw and concluded the meeting with a few words of advice.

‘Do what you can to get to know everyone in here,’ Kelly said. ‘The best times that I ever spent were in student government, and some of my best friends in college I met during that time.’

Other business discussed:

• The meeting also featured additional voting on seven special programming bills. The National Panhellenic Council received $4,500 for a speaker for their health summit.

• A total of $12,428.84 remains in the 2012 special programming budget.

• The general assembly will vote to approve the Finance Board’s financial vision next week.

dmsegelb@syr.edu 

Published on February 20, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dylan: dmsegelb@syr.edu | @dylan_segelbaum