Jenna Mega, Contributing Writer
Dear Editor,
As the Director of Campus Services, the Treasurer of Open Minded Unity and as a human being, I recognize that great power certainly comes with great responsibility. I was selected by the students to act as a liaison between the students and the faculty and staff. Not only do I have principles that I have set for myself but I also recognize that students individually have ideologies that they believe I should live up to. I’ll start by defining my principles and then expand upon them in order to give insight to understand my madness. First, my main initiative as a Director is to provide students with a voice. I invite all students of every background to voice their concerns via email, my office hours or over the phone. Second, I aim to treat all students with the utmost respect and as an equal to myself. Third, I recognize all students have their own unique qualities. Diversity of individuals is important to my view of campus because it defines each person as their own autonomous being. This leads to my fourth main principle, aiming to understand the ideologies of an individual and/or their community. These are not all my principles but definitely the ones I hold myself to.
To expand upon these principles, I have been willing to listen to anybody and everybody who brings a concern to my personal attention. I can only speak for myself and not for the entirety of the Student Association. This does not imply that I do not feel that that SA doesn’t have similar viewpoints; I am an individual, thus I speak only on my own behalf. When I receive a concern I either personally address the instance or allow the proper constituents to address the concern. For example: a student approached me concerned with employees at the dining halls not changing their gloves and/or not washing their work stations. As a result, within less than a week, OAS responded by creating a policy to ensure that any student with a dietary concern could ask a worker to change their gloves and/or clean their stations. This seemingly simple notion of changing something that should have already been implemented wasn’t until it was brought up.
Without knowledge, there cannot be change. Every day people have certain aspirations to accomplish in a day and sometimes lose sight of other important things. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a person doesn’t care. I am a concerned student that sympathizes with students who feel as though they are ignored, especially as a multicultural student. This is an open invitation for those students who feel their concerns haven’t been addressed to come to my office (the back of the SA office in Hunt Union), to email me ([email protected]), or take down my number to share their concerns. I will take the time to personally sit down with anyone who feels I have not lived up to the principles that I have stated above. Without understanding where certain ideologies come from and what prepackaged notions are associated with those ideologies, I cannot provide students with a proper direction. By understanding all view points, I believe I can bring more progressive growth to this campus. If you feel as though I have not lived up to my principles, my question is; how do you feel that I can do so? What notions would allow me to compromise and be on leveling playing field (if you feel as though I am not already)? Again, if you have any questions, comments or concerns I will always make time to hear them.
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