UA to hold town meeting Sunday

For the first time since 2001, the Undergraduate Assembly will be holding a town hall meeting for the student body at large.

This Sunday at 9 p.m., in its usual meeting place in the Ben Franklin Room in Houston Hall, the UA will be hearing issues from its various constituents outside of its Steering Committee.

"We are really hoping to reach out and target individuals and groups that are not necessarily a part of UA Steering," UA Chairman and College senior Jason Levy said. "The UA is looking to make ourselves more accessible to the student body at large."

This town hall meeting is a part of the UA's greater goal of making itself more accountable to its student constituents.

Past criticisms of the UA that characterized the body as an autonomous group of students who make decisions independent of their constituents' actual feelings motivated the assembly to take action.

Recently, the UA has made greater use of its Steering Committee. The group has collaborated with administrators to plan a number of reforms to New Student Orientation.

They have also implemented a UA Steering outreach program, where members of the UA serve as liaisons to the various groups that comprise UA Steering.

UA Steering includes representatives from all of the other branches of student government, as well as leaders from campus community service groups, minority coalitions and Greek organizations.

The UA hopes that this town hall meeting will encourage individual students to bring their opinions to the table.

"Groups that are not as big as the coalitions on campus will be able to bring their issues to us this weekend," Levy said, and mentioned that the emergency medical technicians organization will be bringing up a concern at the meeting.

Individuals or organizations that have concerns they wish to see addressed by the UA should e-mail the UA about their topic and then they will be given time on the agenda at Sunday's meeting.

Although UA members say that they are always open to hearing opinions from everyone, they believe that this event will provide greater incentive for people to speak up.

"We have sent all-school e-mails and put up flyers to advertise this event," Levy said. "If not many people show up, though, we can see it as a different sort of victory -- it indicates that there are not outstanding problems that we haven't addressed."

The UA has also passed a number of sentiments in the past month, and some see this as an additional measure of accountability.

"Because we have passed the general ideas for these proposals, UA members will be able to go back to their constituents and get more suggestions on how to refine the proposals," UA Internal/External Committee Co-Chairwoman and College sophomore Rachel Fersh said.

Fersh added that by hearing these opinions, "we are able to improve our accountability to the student body."

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