The Ohio University Student Senate held its first town hall meeting of the year Monday and proposed ideas, including a Cross Commission Committee, to allow student organizations to collaborate on shared issues.
Senate members and student organization leaders discussed how to get more organizations involved with each other, as well as how they could work together to tackled issues on OU’s campus.
Some proposed solutions included the formation of a Cross Commission Committee to foster relations between different organizations and the creation of Slack or GroupMe group chats to discuss issues between organizations. Those group chats would allow the leaders of those organizations to work together, and more leaders could be added throughout the semester as needed.
There was also a discussion about a potential event that would allow Student Senate and other student organizations to network, learn about other student organizations and possibly invite alumni to help organizations.
In addition to collaboration, the student organization leaders and Student Senate members talked about issues individual student organizations had, including budgeting, communication and Senate’s relationship with those organizations.
Those at the town hall discussed difficulties with the Student Activities Commission and budgeting for organizations. The SAC budget has not increased since 2013, and most student organizations already have relatively small budgets.
Other issues that Student Senate wanted to discuss with the leaders included campus safety and how Senate can help student organizations.
Student Senate President Maddie Sloat said she wants to have a conversation about campus safety and what student organization leaders think Student Senate members can do to better themselves as advocates and representatives for students to be utilized as a resource at the next meeting.
“I also think as the semester kinda goes on there will be other issues and things that pop up that will be things we want to chat about,” Sloat said.
