This year marks Drew’s first time hosting the annual NJ College Student Government Conference. Last Saturday, Oct. 22 from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Drew’s student government gathered in Mead Hall to welcome other schools’ student councils to the Drew campus.
The conference was put together to facilitate different discussions surrounding what can be done to create a better experience for the student body as a whole.
Suchir Govindarajan, Assistant Secretary of Higher Education, provided the morning’s keynote in Mead’s Founder Room. This granted attendees ample opportunity to collect insight into their positions and the important roles they play as representatives for their school.
Afterward, senate members accumulated themselves into the first session of round tables, during which meetings on organizational patterns and systems were carried out by the cabinets in different rooms. For example, Room 110 was dedicated to approaching the steps that can be taken to make clubs more inclusive, as well as how the council itself could advertise its accessibility to students. In the other sessions, members were given the space to share their hopes for increasing student involvement. During that afternoon’s Diversity and Inclusion discussion, schools communicated the measures taken at their institutions to make their campus more welcoming of differences and incorporate the day’s overall learning experience into a chance for beneficial change going forward.
“They try to encourage a conversation across schools with diversity, not just getting perspective of students within Drew but also the activities that are happening at other schools around us,” Junior Senator Jenny Ibuzo (’24) said about the conference panels and the importance of taking the time to communicate with other colleges about what student government can accomplish. “There are some problems we cannot face on our own.”
Feature image courtesy of Rosalie Sapperstein.
