This weekend, CCSG will meet in hopes of providing a venue where members can become better acquainted and bridge the gap among the representatives of student government through discussion regarding various issues stretching across the Penn State campuses.
The Council of Commonwealth Student Governments will meet Friday evening from 7 to 10:45 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. until 5:30 p.m in the HUB-Robeson Center Heritage Hall.
“We’ve always really been bought into this idea of one team, one university and one community,” CCSG President Ben Clark said. “This week always gives us the opportunity to collaborate with each other and we hope to have a lot of fruitful conversations.”
The meeting will provide a way for representatives to get to know one another, said CCSG Caucus Overall Victoria Powell.
“Some of the campuses have never met each other,” Powell said. “We hope this will help bridge the gap and help communication.”
Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Robert Pangborn will be speaking in a question-and-answer style setting where students will have the chance to voice their concerns.
“The campuses will have the opportunity to ask him questions about what is going on at their campuses and the questions they have about the university as a whole,” Clark said. “Students can ask anything under his realm which could range from the budget to general education, to their specific campus and what might be happening.”
A major discussion that the council is planning to have involves the Information Technology fee, a fee that makes it possible for students to use technologies that will be essential in their careers after graduation, according to the Penn State IT Fee website.
“We want to talk to the campuses to gain more information and to find out if there are any issues with the fee,” Clark said. “We want to figure out how to make it the most effective.”
The council will also discuss converting from the university email, Webmail, to Gmail, an idea that was sparked by another university.
“University of Michigan has made the switch and we are looking to see if it is something they would be interested in,” Clark said.
CCSG Vice President Chandra Ulinfun said she hopes the discussion sparks an initiative in creating solutions to common problems the campuses may have.
“We are trying to get to know what our real big problems are that are going on at the campuses and start talking about those now so we can move into trying to work on creating solutions for them,” Ulinfun said.
Along with discussion, Constitutional Review Committee members will be up for approval as well as changes made to the constitution.
The Student Government Association presidents from the Commonwealth Campuses up for approval who are on the CRC are Jalon Alexander, Kate Lewis, Phil Szymanowski and Pawel Zwierzchowski. The central staffers up for approval who are on CRC are Rich Beyers, Phil Hromanik, Marques Pereira and Lindsey Smith.
To email reporter: leb5368@psu.edu
