Although he's only met with UPUA President Gavin Keirans once, Penn State President Graham Spanier is already willing to "rework his schedule" for the newly elected leader, Keirans said.
Keirans, who was elected University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) president March 26, met with Spanier for the first time yesterday. He will return to Spanier's office today for a meeting with interim Vice President for Student Affairs Gail Hurley and student leaders from organizations such as the Graduate Student Association and the University Park Allocation Committee concerning a potential $200-per-year facilities addition to the student activity fee.
Keirans said yesterday's meeting yielded positive results, adding Spanier has promised to "rework his schedule" if Keirans has issues "above Student Affairs" to discuss.
"If he's true to his word, then it was definitely a really promising conversation," Keirans said, adding the meeting lasted about 45 minutes.
Keirans had never met the president before yesterday.
"We had a lot of chat about the state of student government at the university," he said. "We got to talking about how UPUA can really contribute ... It seems like he'd like to see somebody step up and really take the lead, as far as an actual student voice on campus."
While Spanier could not be reached for comment yesterday, university spokeswoman Lisa Powers said meeting with student leaders is a regular occurrence for Spanier.
"I think he considers it a get-acquainted and welcoming meeting," she said.
Keirans said he brought up several plans from his campaign platform, including hiring a paid legal adviser for students and creating a student-landlord dispute resolution center in conjunction with the State College Borough Council.
"He was very receptive to all the ideas I had," Keirans said. "There obviously weren't any concrete plans made, but it seemed that they were something that he agreed that students could really benefit from."
Keirans said Spanier expressed a desire for an effective student government at Penn State.
"We talked about [the now defunct Undergraduate Student Government] -- how there's a lot of nonsense that's gone on in the past," Keirans said. "How the elections are more about violations than they are about substance. ... We talked about how this is really an opportunity for us to get beyond that."
Powers said Spanier is pleased with how his first meeting with Keirans went.
"He told me he had an excellent discussion with Gavin and that he looks forward to working with him, and that he believes that he'll makes a great student representative," she said.
Although Spanier will not attend today's meeting on the facilities addition to the student activity fee, Keirans said he will return to Old Main prepared to listen to concrete plans on how the new fee will be spent.
The fee -- intended for new facilities outside classrooms, libraries and laboratories -- was tabled at last week's Student Activity Fee Board meeting after continued opposition from Keirans.
"UPUA wants to understand more about how the plan would be used," Hurley said. "We do have some ideas, and we're going to share those with the folks tomorrow."
Keirans said he wants to hear about a concrete plan for the fee "right off the bat tomorrow."
"At the same time, if they come up with a plan that really kind of addresses what we've asked for, then we'll be happy to talk about what can be done to benefit the students," he said.
