With weeks until UNITE executives take office, a majority of the goals set by the SOS ticket last spring have been completed by Ohio University Student Senate.
As the semester draws to a close, Student Senate’s top executives reflected on the campaign goals set by the SOS ticket more than a year ago.
Senate President Gabby Bacha, Vice President Jared Ohnsman and Treasurer Hannah Clouser all ran for election on the SOS ticket in the spring of 2015. Clouser was elected president for the 2016-17 term on March 30 as part of the UNITE ticket.
In January, The Post reported that senate had completed all but five of the SOS ticket’s original campaign goals. Among the goals yet to be finished was an initiative to increase the number of hours students could work at university jobs.
“We’re still working on that,” Bacha said. “That’s going to be a slower work in progress because it is happening through the provost’s office. They’re still going back and forth between what the GPA should be for students to be able to work those hours.”
Bacha said this initiative isn’t the administration’s top priority, and that setting a GPA threshold isn’t a task that can be easily completed in a year.
“I’m a pretty big advocate of the 3.0,” she said. “As I’m getting farther along and realizing how many hours in the day it takes to focus on everything. I think that’s what’s going to keep the student in the best spot.”
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Clouser said she plans to pick up the initiative next academic year.
Another item on the SOS ticket’s platform, gaining voting rights for student trustees, is also still in progress.
Ohnsman traveled to the statehouse in January to give testimony on behalf of Ohio House Bill 83, which would grant student trustees full voting rights and access to executive sessions at public universities’ Board of Trustee meetings. The bill is still in committee.
“I just gave a quick testimony of why I wanted them to pass this bill,” Ohnsman said. “Specifically, I talked about why they should be allowed in executive sessions because that’s where they’re really making decisions.”
An association for Student Trustees, similar to the Ohio Student Government Association, is also in the works, Bacha said.
Other SOS goals included a spring concert, scholarships for students and a monthly publication.
Senate decided to forgo the spring concert before the 2015-16 academic year began in lieu of a comedy night at the Convocation Center during the first week of Fall Semester.
“When looking at the spring calendar, there’s sort of this reality that Number Fest is almost like that spring concert,” Bacha said. “Convo Comedy Night is something we did to welcome the new Bobcats to campus because we thought that would have more of an impact, I think.”
The comedy night was funded by money left in the senate account after the 2014-15 term. A total of $6,127.30 remained in the account when SOS executives took office, said Clouser.
This year, senate will not have a substantial amount of money left to award scholarships to students, Bacha said.
Clouser and Bacha attribute the difference in remaining funds to the previous senate body’s lack of participation in programming weeks.
“I think last year they intended on being advocacy focused — although that is debatable — but I would say this year we wanted to be advocacy focused. But we are given this large budget, so we should be giving that back in some form, hopefully in an educational way for students,” Bacha said.
As Clouser prepares to lead senate as the body’s president, Bacha had a word of advice for the fellow SOS ticket member.
“Delegate. There’s a lot of people that run a ship, not just a captain,” she said.
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