Presidential Thoughts
Thoughts from a student, sister, friend, avid Wheaton enthusiast... oh yeah, and SGA President. Filled with articles for The Wire, information, responses to campus events and other random musings.
Announcing SGA's Capital Investment Plan for the Student Experience
On Tuesday, November 1st, SGA launched a year-long plan titled the Capital Investment Plan for the Student Experience, abbreviated as “CIPSE.” This plan, which consists of four main elements, academic engagement, social living, personal health/individual development and continued connection, lays out a concrete plan from SGA to enhance the student experience in a way in which hasn’t been achieved in the past few years. To outline this plan, I’ve copied a piece from the CIPSE document under the heading “Our Charge,” which will soon be available on the SGA website for all students to view.
“As students, our primary focus remains on our academics, but we realize that as scholars our curiosity spans a wide variety of academic engagement on campus. We seek to foster an intellectually curious environment and provide a bridge between social and academic programming. By providing new venues for academic endeavors to shine on the forefront, we hope to witness greater attention paid to our scholastic achievement as students. At Wheaton we are granted a multidimensional curriculum, and we seek to enhance that curriculum and extend our education past the classroom and into the full scope of academic breadth.
The second focus will be on the social realm of campus life at Wheaton. Culturally, significant attention is paid to social events and programming, however, in the past years social programming has waned in efficacy. We seek higher collaboration, better use of funds and creative utilization of student spaces for programming. Social living encompasses a large portion of our identity and should be explored and utilized to the fullest capacity to enrich our social lives as students.
SGA is committed to enhancing student life, and the well being of each individual student remains paramount. Ranging from physical to mental health, we seek an enriched, safe and healthy community which extends beyond our fitness and counseling centers. By enhancing our dining halls to include more options for those with dietary concerns, to a wider variety of fitness options to all students we, at the core, want to, through these various initiatives, enhance our students not only wellbeing and health, but happiness.
Our experience as students does not end upon graduation, we believe Wheaton will continue to follow us through our lives and stay close within our hearts. On that note, we believe in the utmost preparation for our college students, in particular our seniors. Wheaton prepares students, in most senses, for successful careers as well rounded individuals, however, certain areas of that preparation are lacking. We want to enhance our education from not only our majors and minors, but to include situations we will encounter outside the Wheaton bubble. Various initiatives include attention paid to alumni connections, career services and an exploration of various day-to-day tasks we will discover once we move out of our dorms.”
For each category, SGA has outlined three specific initiatives:
Academic Engagement:
Flash Seminars
Expanding Experiential Learning Stipends
Majors Fair/ Academic Festival
Social Living:
More efficient, effective programming
Utilization of Alternative Student Spaces
Reconsideration of the Loft
Personal Health & Individual Development:
Fitness Options
Counseling Center Accessibility
Promoting Healthy Lifestyle
Continued Connection:
Life 101 Sessions
Increasing Trustee Engagement
Student Transition to Alums
This plan will involve participation from the entire community and it is SGA’s hope that together we can impact the student experience in a meaningful and significant way. Please contact SGA President Alexandra Schibanoff with any questions (schibanoff_alexandra@wheatonma.edu)!
Announcing 101 Ideas
Have an idea you wish SGA would consider? Now is your chance to make an impact at Wheaton and have your voice truly heard! SGA is looking to select 101 ideas generated by the student body to enact during the 2011-2012 Academic Year. We are looking primarily for low cost, high impact projects that will make a significant difference on campus and affect a large portion of the student body. Beginning 8:00 AM October 12th, you will find a forum on the SGA Homepage where you can submit as many ideas as you have, you can even remain anonymous during the process. All we ask is that you submit your class year so that we have a general idea of where the idea is stemming from. The forum will remain online for almost two weeks and we will take our final submissions on Tuesday, October 25th. We will then select the final 101 ideas, publish the list and show our progress.
The 101 Ideas Campaign is a part of a greater initiative SGA is making to focus on four areas of campus life and the student experience: academic engagement, social living, personal health/individual development and the continued connection to Wheaton past graduation. If you believe your ideas fall into one specific category, please indicate so in the text of your post. While there is no exact criteria for the kind of submissions we are looking for, we encourage students to submit ideas which will directly correlate to an enhanced student experience.
SGA’s mission every year is to make decisions and create initiatives that directly reflect the student voice, however we recognize that this process can be difficult one. Our remedy is to shape our agenda off of your ideas and listen directly to what all students have to say. If an idea is not selected, but we see a large demand for it, we will do our best to include it in our agenda for the year and find a way to make it happen. SGA exists to impact the quality of life and experience for all of Wheaton’s students; it is our hope that this project will be one that is shaped by the students, for the students.
Who: SGA and YOU
What: A list of 101 Ideas to be enacted during the 2011-2012 Academic Year
Where: SGA Website, www.wheatoncollege.edu/sga
When: October 12-25th, 2011
Why: To have the student voice HEARD
What we’re looking for:
1) Relatively low cost
2) High impact
3) Creative and new ideas
Can’t wait to see what is submitted!
Welcome Back!
Welcome back Wheaton students, staff and faculty! As I addressed the newest members of Wheaton’s community two weeks ago, I shared with them my excitement for this new year, and the many changes Wheaton has undergone this past summer. From the physical, the Mars Center for Science and Technology and renovations made to Meadows, to the social, CORE (Campus Orientation and Registration Experience), to the legislative, S.A.M.M. (Safety Always Matters Most) alcohol policy and Sexual Misconduct Policy, Wheaton is in the midst of a significant transformation unparalleled in my four years here. I encourage us all to celebrate and embrace the new and appreciate the past. These changes reflect every aspect of our lives at Wheaton and our experience, as students, will surely be enhanced by these new additions. While there’s always something special about a new year and the opportunities it presents, this year seems to be opening many more new doors (no pun intended). To me, this newness gives me a fresh lens by which I view our campus and a new attitude to bring to my remaining time here. Here are my personal resolutions for the new year:
1) Take more time to say “Hello!” Often times I get bogged down in work and stress that I forget to take a few minutes to make conversation and connect with the people around me.
2) Reflect on my goals, priorities and areas of focus. Reflection is a weak area for me, I tend to be more focused on moving forward than looking back, but both elements should weigh equally in my life.
3) Respect this school, its property and the people around me and demand that others do the same. It makes me so upset to see broken glass in Balfour or trash cans in the pond, I want be a part of the change that makes the nature of students a little less destructive.
So there’s my mantra: connect, reflect, respect. What’s yours? Come find me in the Café, I’ll be the writing on yellow legal pad and trying to smile and say “Hello!” a little more often. I hope to see you soon.
