This is a place for you to tell us what we should be doing. If you have any questions or concerns or ideas to make the SGA or the College better, please post them here. Be aware that posts do not go up immediately and must be approved by the SGA Webmaster.
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Dear SGA,
As I take a break from my office work, in a city very different and very far from Charleston, I find myself reminiscing of what life was like just one year ago. The Student Government Association played such an integral role in my life and I hope I contributed at least 1/2 of what I gained. Your website looks great, I’ve heard positive news, and I am happy to see the number of students who are interested in taking an active part in their college experience. Make it your own, ask questions if you don’t understand, and take advantage of the resources around you.
Good luck finishing up the year and CONGRATULATIONS to the new officers.
Jillian J. Irizarry
SGA President Emeritus, 2005-2006
As to changing dramatically or only partially the ceremony of Graduation, may I make one small humble suggestion. If the college were to cut back on the number of students they admitted per year we wouldn’t be in this perdicament. It is only due to greed that this question is beine asked. If enrollment in an already crowded, unable to “make space” college were limited this would not be a problem. If enrollment MUST rise then the only other reasonable thing would be to split the ceremonies into their respective schools and keep it at the Cistern. Anything else would just further fuel the greed and ignore tradition!
When telling students that tuition is going up, it would be nice to know why…
Dear SGA,
I find it outrageous that the SGA is considering an enormous hike in the tuition rate less than a month before tuition for the Fall 2007 semester is due. By my calculations, it would take a person approximately 75 hours working at a part time job paying only $6.50 to meet the additionaly tuition burden. Coupled with an generous increase in parking fees, the rate hike could possibly force students who have to pay their own way (and are not on state subsidies) to have to quit school. Shame on you! I don’t believe that students should be made to bear the cost of all of the new building projects that the College has undertaken. Perhaps the College would have been wiser to better plan their budgets and stagger their projects!
I think that moving the graduation to the North Charleston Colliseum is inspired. Weather would be of no consequence, parking is easy, everyone could graduate at the same time, and best of all…the whole family could attend the completion and celebration to such an enormous step in our lives.
Kelly,
The SGA is not the body responsible for increasing the tuition for the students. That burden lies upon the Board of Trustees of the College. Through the deliberations of multiple committees they determine how much to charge the CofC student for tuition. I dislike the hike just as much as the next person, especially being out-of-state, however, there will always be an increase in tuition at every institution in the nation. With less support from state governments colleges and universities have to supplement the loss with greater tuition.
If you have questions regarding the raise in tuition I would ask your Board of Trustees member directly why there is such a drastic change. But let me say once again, the SGA does NOT make the decision on whether to raise or lower tuition.
I would hope that our graduation ceremony would continue to be held at the Cistern as the CofC’s tradition dictates. North Charleston Colliseum has nothing to do with the College of Charleston’s history or with our day to day studies. However, we all have walked through the yard at the Cistern many times over the course of our time at the College. The ceremony should be kept on campus and should not be denied to our class or those that follow us. Split the ceremony into two groups or more, but don’t move it to a generic colliseum that’s been in the Charleston area for less than 15 years.
Let me begin by saying that the entire email put a damper on my Senior year. First off, whoever is resposible in the hike in tuition costs needs to provide more information or drop the hike. I am aware that tuition rises each year, however the lack of notice and the extent of the increase is irresponsible. Secondly, graduation ceremonies at the College of Charleston have been a long standing tradition that the student body looks forward to from their inception at the University. Everything in your power should be done to keep the ceremony at the Cistern. It would be a shame to break a tradition due to the irresposible planning and the overcrowding of our small campus. If they are asking us to give more money, why should we be penalized even further?
SGA is responsible for our tuition, man you are almost as smart as I am. A student run organazation gets to control the tuition that they are paying too. Good to see the value of this CofC education we are getting. The tuition hike is responsible to some but ultimately is caused by the folks in Columbia who decide the state budget and decide what amount will go into state funded education (and obviously the many different choices within this sub catagory). Anyway, teehee, what were we talking about? My vote is: KEEP THE GRADUATION AT THE CISTERN DO NOT REALLY CARE HOW!
To all Open Discussion Participants–
Please do your research before posting to this page. It will help us surpass the frustrating misonceptions of responsibility for things such as tuition hikes, and allow us to turn our efforts to building upon things we can actually change. (Complaints about tuition, for example should be directed to Board of Trustees members. This is the Student Government Association website, so let’s talk about their matters.)
After having to sit through this years May graduation, I think it would be best to move it to the coliseum. I sat there for HOURS on end and it was torture. It just seemed totally unorganized. Just the Saturday before I had been to USCs graduation and they got through thousands of names in a matter of 90 min. That was my first and last graduation attendance (other than my own)
Oh yeah, I am so over the tuition being raised EVERY YEAR. The financial issues that are arising need to be handled by the school, not by the students. This is my third year, and all three years, I have gotten letters stating that tuition will be going up AGAIN. I’m tired of it, and quite frankly, I don’t know too many people that think this is fair. A better budget needs to be set in place.
Here’s another vote for keeping it at the Cistern. The Cistern ceremony celebrates the essence of the College — the Coliseum’s atmosphere is just generic and like every other college out there.
As a parent I am very upset with the $2000. increase in tuition less than 2 months before it is due. I think that when a student comes in as a freshman, that should be the cost for the full 4 years.As the tuition increases each year the new students would be locked in for the higher costs and so on. I have 2 children in college costing me $54,000 a year and struggling to keep our heads above water to give my children a good education.Why do the out of state students have to pay such a large increase and the in state only a few hundred $ ? Looks like we are paying for their tuitions too !!!!
As for the graduation ceremonies. We have already made our hotel reservations for the dates listed on the web for may 11th 2008. We are coming from out of state. I think you should continue tradition and still have the ceremonies at the college but split it into 2 different ones.
this way you keep with tradition and instead of cutting back on the tickets you may be able to increase them so more of the family can go.
I have always thought that graduation should be moved to a Saturday. This would make it easier for families to travel and get home for work following the graduation. I would also vote for the number of graduation tickets being reduced to 2 and to keep it in the Cistern. However, should rain be probable the day of graduation the ceremony SHOULD be moved to the North Charleston Coliseum. This should have happened last year and the year before (I attended both). – Greg, Class of 2008
I think the new library policy is wrong. In tuition, there is a technology fee, which should cover printing fees. Not only that, but tuition continues to increase, so I think the school can afford to let students print for free. Hell, the school can afford it more than the students. We already have to pay for parking, housing, and food. Also, more and more techers continue to use webct and want us to print their slides and notes to bring to class. One class requires more than 300 pages, so imagine what 6 classes consist of. If we can stop the drilling during exam week, I do not see why we can’t band together to fight this new outrageous injustice.
so about limited printing in the library, i think it’s a good idea. people were printing ridiculously large amounts of material and it sucks to be stuck behind someone printing a whole e-book. however, it was said that clemson’s students pay 10 cents a page. i went to clemson for a semester, and printing was free and unlimited. so yea, other than that, great idea
I disagree with the limited printing. I know students need to print many pages especially with more teachers making more use of WebCT (as they should). But some students were taking advantage of the free service (printing e-books). I think we should keep the printing free. Those that need to print larger than usual amounts should have to print during non-peak hours or possibly have a section of the computers, or a certain printer set to allow for printing more than 50 pages (more or less).
I just got an email about the new rules on printing in the library. I understand that we need to save paper and that some students take advantage of the unlimited printing, but 300 pages? I can barely print the required documents for my Finance Seminar course. I am going to have to print it even if it costs me money, so I can’t really save the paper. I feel like 300 pages is cutting us back a lot, and we pay enough in tuition to cover that cost. Maybe we should think about changing to 100% recycled paper? That would really help with the environmental aspect, so if someone does print a few hundred pages, it is recycled! At least 500, but 300 is so little when I pay so much to take these classes.
I would just like to add my 2 cents into the discussion reguarding changing the requirements in order to graduate with latin honors (magna cum laude, etc). I think that this change would be fabulous for our student body. Since the changes in the grading system, I feel that these changes to graduation honors are needed. It is more difficult than ever to get an “A” in a course, and with the strict grading policy this change would allow more students to recieve higher honors. The change would reward even more students who work hard to keep a high GPA. Let’s all push to reward even more of our hard working students!
I’d like to add my opinion to the wonderful new printing policy in place. First I believe it is rather stupid, based on the fact, that within the first month of school, I have already printed 311 pages for ONE COURSE. It is not the students fault that the professors require us to print entire EBooks and EReserves, since this was one of the reasons stated for this policy, I beileve it should be taken up with the professors that require them, not with the students. Between the fact that tuition and parking prices both increased, it makes spending even tighter, especially since the tuition increase occured after most FA had been calculated for the students. Also another interesting thing, another part of the reasoning behind the printing policy was that USC and Clemson both charge, well one is completely false, while the other is false depending on campus. As for Clemson, they do not charge to print at all, and USC for their Walterboro & Allendale campuses do not charge for printing, the only USC campus I know without doubt that even does is USC Columbia. As for the remaining USC campuses I have never been to them and can not speak about them. I just have to wonder the outcome, next time a professor tells us to print an EBook, EReserve or something of similar length, and I say I can’t because I’ve went over my pages.
Also what exactly is that Technology Fee for in our tuition? Our crappy ResNet which takes forever to do any work on, if you can manage to do any work at all without it timing out, or our lovely library printing policy?
Saving the environment seems to be a weak excuse for the printing fee especially when the library REMOVED all printers that printed on BOTH SIDES. Double-sided printing sounds pretty good for the environment. Hmmm…
I also have a comment to put in about the new printing policy that has been put into effect. I do understand the reasoning behind the policy, but I believe that since we all pay the tuition here, which keeps rising every year, then we should be allowed some say in this situation. For many classes (esp. classes like Western Civ,) where we are REQUIRED to print out the pages for discussion, it would be unfair and unrealistic to except students to have to pay for yet another packet. This is taking into account such facts as: tuition is already pricey and book prices outrageous (esp. considering that a lot of the classes that require a lot of print outs also require multiple books). Taking all of this into consideration, 300 pages does not seem a reasonable number of pages to limit student to. I agree that we should not have unlimited amount of printing, but something more along the line of 500 pages would be more reasonable, esp. for those students who do not own a computer of their own and rely soley on the computers provided by the school to do their work.
I think that webmail needs to be changed. It takes forever to get your mail, and sometimes it won’t even open your mailbox for an hour or two. when we’re waiting on important news from teachers or classmates, it gets really frustrating. And I pretty much agree with everyone else about the printing. We pay a lot of money to go to school here, and the printers won’t print double sided. For a history class, besides the tons of articles we have had to print, we have to write a 10 page paper… and then print it out for all 30 people in the class. just that project alone is taking up my entire semester of paper allowance. I understand a lot of paper was being used, but how about emphazing recycling, or at the very least, up the allowance by oh, 500 pages. Or let the teachers know what a burden this is to some of the students who pay for it themselves- maybe they can pick and choose the most important ones, and not expect us to buy books, and use over 300 pages of printing for their class alone.
I was reading Whitney’s email the other day and I agree that something needs to be done about webmail. It just seems to get worse and worse as the days go on. I should not have to worry about emailing myself something for class and then not being able to open it at the time I need it. So people may say just use your other email, but professors sometime require you to use webmail when you send them something. Also the administration only uses webmail to contact us. Or for example last Friday when there was the bomb scare, people wanted to get updates throughout the day via webmail (because that is what everything was sent to) and where unable to because webmail has random times that it will and will not work. Please take the steps to get webmail functioning correctly!
You guys should get with the charleston police and get them to do something about bike thieves. its ridiculous that bikes are stolen here so frequently. and when this happens, the police don’t do anything about it. they just tell you, “the chances of finding it aren’t very good.” why not? because they’re not looking? i understand that they have murders to solve, but while they respond to a shooting downtown, why don’t they just take a peek in the closet to see if there are any missing bikes in there? i’m sure if they were actually looking for stolen bikes that they would find them, or at least some of them. do they not care about college kids and their bikes. i guess not. but someone should press them and shine some light on this situation. the SGA should do something..i guess
I was wondering if there is any more info about changing the GPA requirements for receiving Latin Honors?
I think its inappropriate for the SGA President and Vice President to send their personal views out to students over the school listserv. There are many opinions regarding the stimulus package and its absurd that these two should display their petty disagreements in such a public manner. I’m sure your opinions are very insightful, but to be honest no one really cares. Don’t flood my inbox.
Elizabeth and I would like to know why A-pluses are not offered at the College of Charleston. Both of us are excellent, competitive students who are frustrated with this policy. It doesn’t seem fair that achieving a grade of a 93 holds the same weight as achieving a grade of a 99 or even 100 in a class. As students who have had personal experience with this situation before, we find that the lack of recognition for this grade difference mitigates our incentives to continue to pursue excellence. We, along with many other members of our student body, would be willing to fight to change this legislation.
Thank you for listening.
I am very disappointed that I posted a concern in this open forum yesterday, and it was taken down today. I wrote nothing disrespectful or offensive. I merely wished to note my concern about the regulation that prevents teachers from giving students grades of A-pluses. Once again, as a high-achieving student, I feel as though this regulation mitigates my incentive to excel in class, since a grade of a 93 holds the same weight as a grade of 100. If the school refuses to allow A-pluses, then they should eliminate A-minuses, and maybe all pluses and minuses in general. As an A-student, this legislation is a concern to me. What can we do to change it?
Thanks for putting my comments back up!
It would be lovely it you could update the budget proposal sheet to 2010, rather than 2009. And a link to it in the calendar would be great as well.
How does this work? We want to create one. Thanks!
Safe Space Resolution
“The College of Charleston Philosophical Society formally stands in solidarity with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Queer, Asexual, Allied, and Intersex (LGBTQQAAI) communities against all forms of discrimination, intimidation, hate crimes, bullying, hostility and intolerance. In response to the recent wave of tragic suicides across the nation, the Philosophical Society condemns oppression of sexual and gender minorities especially in academic settings and on college campuses. In light of these events, we call upon the College of Charleston administration, faculty, staff, and students:
* The administration is obligated to review and amend current policies regarding the inclusivity and protection offered to all members of the CofC community regardless of sexual and gendered identification.
* The faculty and staff are obligated to maintain vigilance in the classroom and on campus related to instances of intolerance, and are responsible for creating an open, respectful, and empathetic environment for all members of the CofC community.
* The students are obligated to unconditionally respect each other, stand up for each other, recognize and respond to instances of intolerance, and provide support each other at all times.
Students especially are reminded of their commitment to each other and the greater well-being of our college. These recent suicides evidence an existential threat to the kind of institution the College of Charleston is, namely an academic institution that fosters the positive personal and intellectual development and growth of its members. No one should feel threatened on the basis of their sexuality, gender, or any form of self-expression and self-identification. The responsibility for these matters rests in the hands of every person, and it is imperative that we uphold this resolution with our daily language and behavior.
We demand a safe space for all members of the College of Charleston community.”
Signed in affirmation, October 1 2010, College of Charleston Philosophical Society officers Javier Gomez-Lavin, Amberjade Mwekali Taylor, Sarah Holt, Daniel Stone
14 Glebe Street, Charleston SC 29424
http://www.cofcphilosophy.blogspot.com
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