Student Association members and SA President Larry Seivert have been meeting with Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs Thomas Wolfe every Friday morning to discuss the future of MayFest. Members also debated the merits of Syracuse University’s plan to ship 100,000 books a year from Bird Library to a storage facility four hours away in Paterson, N.Y.

Seivert gave a brief update on SA’s efforts to create a separate day for MayFest dedicated completely to student interests at Monday’s meeting in Maxwell Auditorium.

While Seivert declined to give specific information regarding progress on the separate day off, he ensured the assembly that talks are going extremely well.

‘Notice we are talking about what could be included in a day for students, not whether there should be one,’ said Seivert, who added that members of University Union have also been present at some of the meetings.

The assembly also discussed the university’s plan to ship books from a near-capacity Bird Library, beginning in spring 2010.

The removal of books would hinder academic growth on campus, said Tyrone Shaw, chair of SA’s Academic Affairs Committee. If students need books that have been shipped to the storage facility, they will have to wait at least two days to receive the book after requesting it. This will be detrimental to students who don’t realize they need the materials until the day before their assignments are due, he said.

‘Regardless of it being last minute planning or not, that is still stifling academic progress on campus. Papers aren’t going to be turned in as good as they could be because students don’t have access to those academic materials,’ he said.

The issue is also about more than just the unavailability of books, Shaw said. The removal of books will continue to move the library toward a student study space, rather than a place to house books. Converting the library to a student study space goes against the intended purpose of the library, he said.

‘We need to think about the space issue,’ he said. ‘Should the library take on the role of creating study spaces?’

Some students feel that it should. Meghan Nagle, a senior political philosophy major who attended the meeting, said the addition of comfortable study spaces to the library is a necessary one.

‘The fact that our library has turned into a giant study lounge is a result of how crowded our campus is becoming,’ said Nagle.

Shaw, SA’s Academic Affairs Committee chair, said he plans to express student concerns to Suzanne Thorin, SU’s dean of libraries. He hopes to push for greater communication between what students actually want to happen to the books and what will happen.

During the meeting, SA Comptroller Lily Mei presented the results of the budget appeals to the assembly. Any student organizations that did not receive funding during last week’s budget hearing could appeal their decision to the finance board. The board had $70,000 set aside to fund organizations that appealed. Of the appealed budgets, nine received full funding, 17 received partial funding and 28 did not receive any funding.

The assembly voted to pass all but one of the finance board’s decisions. Habitat for Humanity received no funding for their alternative spring break trip, a decision that the assembly did not agree with. The bill was voted down and will be sent back to the finance board.

kronayne@syr.edu

Published on November 16, 2009 at 12:00 pm