One month into the new school year, Student Association Vice President Park Wynn said he is making progress on his platform issues since taking office last spring.
In April, The Reflectorreported Wynn and former SA Vice President, Halston Hales, were working to improve the election process.
Wynn said he and Hales were able to work this summer on revamping the election process.
 ”This summer we worked a lot on reviewing the election code,” he said. “We did that with the dean of students office, with Tabor Mullen, assistant dean of students. Any changes that come through the elections code have to be passed by the senate.”
Wynn also said they plan on presenting the proposed election code packet during the first senate meeting Sept. 18, with hopes of passing legislation to enable big changes in early October.
He said he hopes to take some of the negative student feedback surrounding previous elections to improve this year’s.
“Specifically, those changes are making campaigning a much more laid back process, we don’t want it to be as ‘in your face’ as it has been in the past,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of complaints about that.”
Along with changes to the election code, Wynn has been working on increasing productivity amongst the SA senate.
Currently, senate meetings alternate between legislation sessions and committee meetings, which Wynn said he hopes will increase productivity.
 ”I really do think productivity will go up, it’s a smaller senate, it’s just out of colleges now,” he said. “We’re really looking to involve more of the college atmosphere.”
Wynn said SA has plans to incorporate each specific academic college in order to better meet their needs.
“If there are any specific organizations, like I know engineering has a lot of organizations in their college, we’d like to see the representatives talking to them and asking questions to them at their meetings about what could be beneficial to them at the senate, talk to administrators on campus or pass legislation over it,” he said.
In addition to working with SA senate, Wynn has been working with the faculty senate to increase communication between the two senate bodies.
 ”The thought was that whenever we choose our committee chairman for student senate, that the five committee chairmen of the faculty senate and Dr. Meghan Millea, faculty senate president, would be able to meet up about once a month,” he said.
Wynn said he believes the faculty senate has a different perspective than the student senate and more knowledge concerning academic issues at the university.
“We are hoping that by the five of them meeting up once a month, they could give us some of those ideas,” he said. “We’ll be able to take those back to the senate and we’re really looking forward to that.”
Parking has been an issue among MSU students this semester and Wynn has not let this problem go unnoticed.
He was able to share some of the plans SA has in the works for the future of parking that will stem from increased funds the university recently gained.
 ”As I said during campaigning last February, this summer we applied for a grant from the state of Mississippi, from the Department of Transportation to gain more money for our shuttles and we actually got that grant, the university did,” he said.
Wynn said this grant has been in the process of being budgeted and will be put to use in improving transportation to campus for students who live off campus.
“Right now Parking Services and Bill Broyles, vice president of Student Affairs, who helps with our budget, and Student Affairs has been going over the budget as to how we want to use that money,” he said. “A lot of it is going to end up going towards shuttle routes off campus, to help off-campus students get on to campus.”
Wynn also said the university is looking to increase the number of shuttles on campus, in hopes of getting to classes easier for students.
Wynn said there is one idea in the works he is really interested in seeing put into motion.
“The idea is to have a sign in between two stops on campus where if a few students are standing by that sign, the shuttle can stop and pick them up, on the way to their route stop,” he said.
With the approval of the grant from the Department of Transportation, Wynn said new options are being explored for the future of MSU’s parking and shuttle programs.
“A lot of really cool things are in the works now that we have that money,” he said. “I know the university and Student Affairs are really glad that we got that grant.”