UPDATED: Nov. 2, 2017 at 8 p.m.

Schine feasibility representatives spoke to the Graduate Student Organization about potential changes to the Schine Student Center on Wednesday night in Crouse-Hinds Hall.

Other topics on the organization’s agenda for their third business meeting of the semester included the suspension of non-immigrant visas for Turkish graduate students and the potential renaming of The Inn Complete.

Associate Director of Planning Bruce Molino held an open Q&A session with graduate students on the potential updates to the student center, which he said hadn’t changed since he was an architecture student at SU 18 years ago. Molino said that he and his team are conducting feasibility studies to determine what changes can be made to the building.

“The aspiration of the building is that it becomes a true student union, which it isn’t today,” Molino said. “How that manifests itself in the architecture, operations (and) programming is what these studies are for.”

The 22 members of GSO in attendance were mostly unaware of some of the spaces currently available at Schine — such as the Jabberwocky Cafe — but offered several suggestions regarding updates to working space.

Several members, including Vice President of Internal Affairs Rikki Sargent, also offered suggestions regarding the speed of Food Services in the student center.

“I usually only run in there for food or coffee, and there have been times when it’s undergrad central hour, and it’s flooded,” Sargent said. “I don’t go in there that much because I know it gets busy.”

Following the presentation, GSO president Jack Wilson delivered a report regarding the suspension of visas to Turkish graduate students matriculating in spring 2018.

The initial visa suspension happened on Oct. 8, after an employee was arrested in the U.S. Consulate at Istanbul. Wilson said the university has guidelines in place to help students stranded abroad complete their degrees.

He also said that there had been talks about potential temporary housing for students from Turkey and possibly Cuba. The idea originated after “various attempts by the White House to impose a ‘Muslim travel ban’ in one form or another,” Wilson said in an email after the meeting.

“As graduate students we have access to off-campus housing, so that may not be as big of an issue,” Wilson said at the meeting.

Vice President of External Affairs Sweta Roy delivered her own report on events that the GSO hosted during the past month, as well as the upcoming National Association of Graduate-Professional Students conference that will take place this week. The conference will discuss leadership in higher education.

Comptroller Joshua Fenton presented a budget for the Syracuse University Program for Refugee Assistance, which granted $900 to the initiative’s Special Programming application. The budget was passed with a 21-1 yes to no vote with no abstentions.

Members of SU’s chapter of the American Society for Engineering Education presented their own budget for seminars designed to build Ph.D. skills. The budget totaled $3,402.

Several GSO members questioned the necessity of funding the initiatives during the debate, but ultimately the full budget was passed with a 16-6 vote without abstentions.

The third and final budget presented came from the Anthropology Graduate Student Organization, which outlined plans to invite State University of New York New Paltz anthropology department chair Ken Nystrom to speak this Thursday. The budget totaled $250 and was passed with 21-0 vote.

Sargent called for nominees for the vacant position of senator-at-large, which has been empty for the last two meetings. However, no nominees stepped forward, leaving the position vacant until the GSO’s next meeting at least.

Other resolutions presented during the meeting included a resolution to rename The Inn Complete, presented by Roy and Fenton. SU Food Services’ catering department is interested in re-branding the South Campus pub, claiming that renaming it “The Inn” would bring in more customers, Roy said.

Many members of the audience said they believed the original name was more appealing, suggesting that the establishment’s marketing be improved instead. They rejected the resolution with 20 “no” votes and 1 abstention.

The final resolution, from the GSO’s Finance Committee, recommended that $33,000 from the GSO’s rollover fund be allocated to the organization’s outreach, special programming and travel grant budgets. It was passed with a 20-0 vote.

Members debated the merits of adding a disaster relief budget to the funding in light of natural disasters in Puerto Rico and Mexico but ultimately voted against it.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the degree completion process for Turkish graduate students matriculating in spring 2018 whose visas were suspended was misstated. Syracuse University has guidelines in place to help students stranded abroad complete their degrees, but not guidelines to allow them to return to the United States. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

CLARIFICATION: In a previous version of this post, it was unclear that the Graduate Student Organization’s discussions about providing temporary housing to students from Turkey and Cuba was not related to the Turkish visa suspensions.

 

 

Published on November 1, 2017 at 11:37 pm