Jon Barnhart stood in front of the Student Association as its president for the first time Tuesday night.

Syracuse University’s student body elected Barnhart president of SA’s 54th session in a campus-wide election in November, and his term officially began Jan. 1.

Even before SA’s first official meeting Tuesday night, Barnhart and his cabinet began planning for the new semester.

‘I wanted to make sure we were running before we even hit the ground on Tuesday,’ he said.

Barnhart set many broad goals in place during his campaign, including improving safety on and off campus, setting the stage for lock-in tuition and decreasing segregation on campus. In addition to these long-term plans, he has concrete goals to accomplish by the end of his first semester as president.

SU Showcase and MayFest are two of his main concerns for the spring semester. SA is working to make SU Showcase and MayFest two separate days. Barnhart said he wants to help make sure SU Showcase is a worthwhile and successful academic day.

No specific plans are in place for MayFest, but Barnhart said he is continuing to work with university administrators to determine what events could be included in a day for students.

‘I really feel like this year is going to be not only a test year but a building year,’ he said regarding the re-creation of MayFest.

Barnhart also said he hopes to fill all of the student seats in University Senate, SU’s governing body of students, faculty, staff and administrators, by the end of the semester. There are 27 available student seats, and currently only 5 of those are filled, Barnhart said.

In addition to ‘recruiting heavily’ for USen, Barnhart said he wants to improve communication between USen and SA.

Neal Casey, the newly elected chair of the Student Life Committee, said his committee will work to enact a medical amnesty program at the university. This program would prevent students from being punished for underage drinking if they call for help in an alcohol-related incident, he said. Casey said he is hoping to see this policy enacted by February.

SA’s new comptroller, Jeffrey Rickert, was also elected by students in the campus-wide election in November. Rickert is in charge of the Finance Board, the division of SA that handles money and determines how the student fee is allocated.

Rickert made the budget process a week longer than normal, which he said will give the Finance Board more time to make difficult decisions about where to allocate money.

He said when students ask him if the student fee is spent the right way, he tells them it’s impossible for him to answer that because he is only one of 13,000 students. He said he hopes to develop some type of survey that would help the Finance Board determine where students would like to see their money go.

SA’s newly elected vice president, Angelo Coker, said he plans to start a non-traditional student commission, which would include transfer students, veterans and disabled students. A transfer student and Syracuse native, Coker said he feels the concerns of non-traditional students are not always fully addressed. The commission would meet twice a month, and their concerns would be reported back to the assembly.

The committee chairs have many great plans of their own, and they all bring great leadership to their positions, Barnhart said.

‘They all three have brilliant ideas of what to do with their committees, ideas different from my own,’ Barnhart said. ‘I was really excited to see them thinking outside of the box.’

Above all, Barnhart said, he and his cabinet want to continue reaching out to as many students as possible and making sure every student voice is heard.

‘You need to be an assembly member to vote,’ Coker said. ‘But you don’t need to be an assembly member to be active.’

kronayne@syr.edu

Published on January 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm