If elected Student Association president, Jon Barnhart plans to improve campus safety, develop a more effective budget plan for student organizations and save MayFest.

‘I am running to represent you as your Student Association president because I listen to you guys,’ Barnhart said in a speech to 50 students Thursday in Slocum Auditorium.

Barnhart geared his points toward students in the School of Architecture and was invited to speak by the Architecture Student Organization.

Liz Mikula, SA’s lone representative from the School of Architecture, asked Barnhart to speak during the Architecture Student Organization meeting.

‘I really want to get the School of Architecture integrated on campus,’ said Mikula, who is the first SA representative from the School of Architecture in several years.

Barnhart is the chair of SA’s Student Engagement Committee. He is running for SA president against Hari Iyer, a junior finance, economics and policy studies major who is not currently in SA.

Barnhart said he hopes to keep architecture students informed and get their voices heard.

After introducing himself Thursday, Barnhart talked about the importance of improving safety off campus and on South Campus, he said, something SA has already been working on by getting lights replaced on and off campus. He also discussed the possibility of developing a neighborhood watch program made up of students who live off campus and permanent residents in the area.

On more effective budget planning, Barnhart wants to fix SA’s budget process to allow student organizations, like University Union, more flexibility in scheduling events.

He said he also hopes to increase funding for university-sponsored publications, which receive the same amount of money every year, he said. If elected, he hopes to increase that amount of money to help the publications grow and improve.

Finally, Barnhart addressed MayFest. Barnhart said he supports the university’s decision to reinstate classes on the day of SU Showcase because it goes along with the academic purpose of the day.

But Barnhart wants Syracuse University to give a separate day off for students to plan and participate in social activities, an initiative that SA is currently working on. SA is gathering student opinions and ideas and will present them to Thomas Wolfe, vice president and dean of student affairs.

Barnhart’s campaign speech drew mixed reactions from the crowd. Beryl Johnsen-Seeberger, a sophomore architecture student, said she appreciated Barnhart’s initiative to speak with architecture students, but she said he could have done a better job in relating his speech to the students.

‘We’re a very special school, and we’re very hard to cater to,’ Johnsen-Seeberger said.

Hanna Schurman, a sophomore in the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, attended Barnhart’s campaign speech. As an ESF student, she said she was impressed by his platform of inclusion.

‘He has definite plans as to how he’s going to achieve what he wants to achieve,’ Schurman said.

kronayne@syr.edu

Published on November 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm