SGA committed to students, present & future

Your Student Government Executive Board is pursuing the Clery Act. This includes implementing more safety programs in partnering with our police department. I truly hope everyone is taking a more proactive look at their own situations and erring on the side of caution since the previous article, whether on campus, at home, or public areas.

While the rest of you were sleeping in and/or recovering from the previous night’s partying on Feb.17, your student government officers and representatives were catching a bus at 4 a.m. from Richland College. We were on our way to spend the day in Austin to join more than a thousand other community college students from across the state. Our united purpose was to lobby the Legislature for additional appropriations and funding for our community colleges. Since the tuition deregulation of four-year universities last year, enrollment at two-year colleges has increased to 1.1 million students, yet state funding has dramatically decreased. We will continue to lobby the rest of this semester in hopes that our senators and representatives will recognize the need for $357+ million additionally this upcoming fiscal year.

• More than 348 of you participated in our recent campus survey regarding the police call boxes. Here are those results: 68 percent of you know what the emergency call boxes are for, 55 percent of you know how to use one, 74 percent of you are comfortable using one in case of an emergency (you pick up the handset and it dials directly to the police dispatcher), and 94 percent of you feel secure on our campus. The most disconcerting result was that 51 percent of you do not know where our emergency call boxes are located. Your officers are submitting these results to the President‘s Cabinet, the police department and the Way-Finding Committee.

• The most exciting news we have is a tangible result of a yearlong project which began in the spring semester 2003. Your officers had been given a charge by he President’s Cabinet to survey the student body, submit recommendations or a new mascot and work along with our campus Graphics Department in this endeavor. The Executive Board appreciates Ezra Vancil in the graphics department for his talents and dedication. The finished product, North Lake College‘s new mascot, will be unveiled March 7 at the Chili-Cookoff near the bookstore.

As you receive your free magnet during the Chili Cookoff and all of the free food, remember: REAL BLAZERS WEAR BLUE AND GREEN ON FRIDAYS.

— Dawn Lassiter is the Student
Government Association president.