This text has been written and approved by Samantha Wolf and Robbie Williford, Student Body President and Vice President, respectively.
Beliefs/Values-
• Remaining realistic throughout campaigning is crucial. We don’t want to steer the students and their voice in the wrong direction.
• Getting involved with more initiatives and causes can become the focal point of Oakland University Student Congress.
• Building relationships is vital for maintaining growth and innovation. The trust and respect that results from the building of relationships with not only the students, but also other organizations and departments, as well as the administration. This will work to better ensure that the students and their voice can be accurately heard.
• Increasing connectivity throughout the community will help it grow. Reaching out to the community through service is one of the small steps that can help build it.
• Every voice counts. Each student’s voice matters. We want to make sure that our administration can fully represent the voice of the students.
• Remaining reliable. We want to ensure that we can become a reliable source for not only the administration, but the students and faculty as well.
• We want to encourage creativity throughout campus. By encouraging this, we are giving people a pipeline to follow their dreams and do whatever it is that they want to do.
• Recognizing and appreciating people and things need to remain one of the top goals. This is something that is so important.
Initiatives-
• We wish to engage in further discussions with University Administration to ease the congestion and frustration most students experience when it comes to parking. We also will seek out further alternatives to this parking problem, such as more utilization of the Bear Bus, building a better Bike Share program, or offering more to combat the issue.
• We wish to assist University Administration in lobbying efforts to reduce tuition. With a 7.1 increase in tuition last year, we will do whatever we can in order to reduce tuition to make it affordable. We hope that this will also help with retention for most students.
• We wish to install a Scantron machine in the library. By implementing a Scantron machine in a facility that is 24-hours and has high traffic, we are hoping to provide alternative ways for students to get Scantrons. We also wish to compliment this initiative with the ability to pay for the Scantrons with Spirit Cash.
• We wish to provide students with more prints, but we also want to push departments to require further use of Moodle. Electronic resources are the “future” and Oakland University is falling short on its utilization of Moodle. The more we work electronically, the less paper that we have to use.
• We wish to re-establish communication in all areas. Some ideas include greater utilization of GrizzOrgs, working with the Dean of Students to create a monthly or bi-weekly involvement newsletter, which would include volunteering opportunities, leadership opportunities, and activities on campus and in the community, that goes out to ALL students, and monthly fireside chats which will help communicating to the students in a unique way.
• We wish to create more of a vibrant campus life by collaborating with other offices and departments around campus and throughout the community. We will do this by having more events on nights and weekends and by collaborating more frequently with more student organizations and possibly local businesses. This would help the University move more towards a 24-hour campus and it will allow us to think in the long term. We would work to create those relationships and partnerships by supporting other organizations.
• We wish to work with Housing more closely. We will do this by having representative from Oakland University Student Congress attend House Council and Residence Halls Association meetings. We will also be in contact with Resident Assistants so that they can update students on events that are coming up.
Concluding Remarks-
Coming from both Samantha Wolf and Robbie Williford- We approve this text to hold the values, beliefs, and ideas that we both believe to be benefactors in the future, especially for Oakland University. We are hoping that through our words, we can create enough actions to help fulfill the wants and needs of the students. After all, we’re here to embody your voice. We hope you’re as excited as we are with what the future holds.