Student Association President Jeremy Johnson, along with other members of the executive and legislative branches of the SA, answered questions from students in the SA Open Forum Tuesday night at the McCool Auditorium.Despite a low student turnout, a broad range of topics were presented to the SA, ranging from the state of relations between the Mississippi State University administration and the student body to increasing security costs of campus events sponsored by student organizations.
Johnson said while he thinks the MSU administration and student body have a great relationship, decisions made by the administration are still made at its own discretion.
“One thing that a lot of students do not realize is that student input is very valuable, but a lot of times it can’t really swing decisions,” he said. “They do want to know what student reactions will be when decisions are made.”
Johnson said one example of this was the housing visitation policy. The administration did talk to the SA about the policy, but the SA had no say on whether the policy would be enacted or not, he said.
“A lot of times when this happens, the decision is deemed something that needs to happen and they just want input,” Johnson said. “It is our job as student leaders to try our best to represent a vast majority of students when the administration comes to us for input.”
In response to the recent confiscation of bicycles, the SA is opening up communication with the administration, he said.
“That’s Jim Jones’ policy,” Johnson said. “We’re trying our best to let them know what students have to say about this, but ultimately it is their decision.”
SA Director of transportation and parking W.C. McClendon said the rumors about the potential closure of the Night Route are untrue.
“We have enough money to continue the program as is,” McClendon said. “We will have the money by the end of the semester to run two buses as it has been in the past years. I do not want anyone to think that the Night Route is going away because it is not.”
Johnson said the problems faced by the shuttle system stem from a combination of factors including an increase in students, a rise in gas prices which was not counterbalanced with increased university funding and the loss of key Night Route sponsors.
“Over the past few years, MSU had not experienced a large increase in students,” Johnson said. “This year we had a huge increase.”
He said this has helped to shine a light on how small the shuttle system had been in previous years.
“The funding from the university to run the Night Route has been the same in previous years to run everything it has been,” Johnson said. “We’ve also had some key sponsors not want to continue sponsoring the Night Route.”
Another reason for these problems may be because the shuttle system went from being its own entity to now being under parking and transportation, he said.
Johnson said he has started discussion with the administration over the problems the shuttle system faces.
“I’ve had several meetings with Mike McGrevey about how to fix the shuttle system,” he said. “It is going to take time; nothing’s going to happen overnight, but we have opened those lines of communication to let them know that this is a big problem and it needs to be addressed. We’ve got to find a way to fix this.”
The SA fielded questions about student complaints of missing books in the Mitchell Memorial Library and overcrowding in the library’s computer commons.
“I’m not sure how often the library audits their books, or if they do,” Johnson said. “We can have our senators formally draft up legislation to get this information about the library. That’s our way of showing them that we care about this and need to know about it.”
The SA also said more computers for students will arrive when the Colvard Student Union reopens after renovations. Computers are also available to students at the computer commons in Butler Hall.
Security costs for campus events held by student organizations were also addressed. Currently, basic security costs organizations $1,000 for four police officers. Organizations are also restricted from employing outside security.
Johnson said although this has not been a problem in the last few years, it has recently surfaced for several organizations.
“We can definitely look into it,” he said. “The first thing we can do as the SA is to talk to Dean [of Students Mike] White and find out what brought this change on.”
Senior biological engineering major Andie Bullock, who questioned the SA about the procedure to create a version of Rick’s Rowdies for football, said the forum provided a great venue for information about how to start the group.
“I’m all for working with the SA,” Bullock said. “These are the students who know more about what’s going on and how things work than we do. This forum provides them a chance to see what we think and feel. Even though we go to class together, it gives us a chance to discuss serious things that probably wouldn’t get talked about in class.”
Johnson said the SA will continue to host forums for students in the future.
“I think tonight was great. The low turnout wasn’t what I wanted, but we got students here to voice their concerns and open up the dialogue,” he said. “Hopefully the interest will grow and we’ll have more students coming out not only to offer their criticisms, but also to get the facts behind rumors and stories that they hear. We’re here for the students.