Friday marks the
unofficial beginning to Thanksgiving break, meaning the end of the fall semester is around the corner. This past spring, Vice President Valarie Russell and I, along with 37 representatives were elected into the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA), Penn State's official student government.
When Valarie and I ran, we campaigned on the premise of launching some major initiatives as well as centralizing the student voice for maximum impact. I am happy to report that we are well on our way to making our major campaign platform ideas a reality.
The first major concept we campaigned on was launching Tenant-Landlord Mediation Services. The basic premise of this is that students and landlords often get into some type of dispute through the year, especially in a college town like State College.
Many of times, tenants feel as if they do not have any means of resolving disputes beyond taking it to the court system.
Well have fear no longer, with funding now secured, UPUA is ready to launch a pilot mediation program this spring for off campus renters. This was made possible through the Borough Council of State College, as well as the Legal Affairs sector of UPUA taking the lead.
Our focus on the legal sector does not stop with mediation, as UPUA is in the process of launching free legal services for all students. This initiative is being organized in conjunction with the Office of Student Affairs and the Dickinson School of Law. The idea of the program is that it would start off focusing on tenant-landlord, credit-consumer and contract related cases, with the casework expanding over time. It will start out with a full time attorney, staff support and interns who are law students earning credit.
While there has been a great deal of progress made on this, it still faces increased effort to make it a reality. For this to be a program with longevity, it is imperative that it is started properly with both the Office of Student Affairs and the Dickinson School of Law being on board and comfortable with overall structure of the services.
This is not meant to be a mom and pop program that reaches a small number of students, but lasting services that are used by thousands of students during their time at Penn State.
In addition to these legal minded initiatives, UPUA is also focused on every day student needs.
On Nov. 17, UPUA officially launched the Online Book Exchange, made possible by Student Affairs IT. This will effectively act as another version of half.com, a major Web site for selling and buying used textbooks, for Penn State students at all campuses, acting as a marketplace for students to buy and sell books from one another. With so many Penn State specific books, and with escalating costs, we found this book exchange essential to meeting student concerns.
These three major initiatives seemed destined for success, but UPUA is also working on many other projects that could prove to be successful in the future. Another highlighted project is coming from our academic affairs unit and their work on Study Abroad Arbitration. The idea behind this project is that if you choose to go abroad and do not receive the grade you should have, Penn State faculty can rectify your grade.
As these projects reflect, there have been major strides under this group of UPUA leaders in our becoming a respected student voice. But we can still do more.
While it is nice to work toward our legal services initiative attaining longevity, the greatest thing a student government can ever do is create a working student body that has longevity. Programs and initiatives like these are worthwhile and needed, but if students are ever going to feel empowered at Penn State, there needs to be more than just programming. There needs to be a mentality shift so that students feel like they are of institutional decision making as well as a part of each other.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have the position of student body president. Being that it is Thanksgiving season, I will end by saying how grateful I am to have such a highly motivated student body and look forward to a productive rest of the year.
Gavin Keirans is the president of the University Park Undergraduate Association. His e-mail address is gpk5002@psu.edu.
