After a fall centered on composing reports and filtering student input to administrators, the Student Assembly plans on undertaking some more projects this winter.
"We have very energetic members who are really hoping to do even more," said Jorge Miranda '01, president of the Student Assembly.
According to Miranda the winter has traditionally been a productive term for the Assembly, and he said he hopes to take on new and bigger activities, while continuing work done in the fall.
Miranda said one of the Assembly's goals this year has been to expand student involvement. Efforts have focused on attempting to increase student input in the Initiative process through the use of student members of a number of college committees.
The Student Assembly helped to select the student members of these committees and hopes that publicizing the names of the members will increase student input.
"One of the things we want to do this term is to help even uninvolved students understand a complicated and decentralized process so they know who to contact if they have an idea," Miranda said.
"We want to make sure that people don't forget about what's happening with the Initiative, we want to bring it up again," he continued.
Miranda said he sees the upcoming changes at the College as something that students can heavily influence.
He said he believes that "at this point, the Trustees are out of the picture. Now, more than ever, students have a stake in how things will turn out."
The Student Assembly is also collaborating with the College committees to coordinate previous ideas on many of the issues under examination.
"There have been so many committees formed and so many issues discussed in the past, that we are trying to round up ideas and make sure things aren't forgotten," Miranda added.
One particularly close relationship is with the World Cultures Initiative Committee, which has asked the Assembly to compile the work it has done on the issue over the past few years.
In addition, the Assembly will be organizing four summits as a follow-up on their State of Student Affairs report, which was released to the administration this past fall.
One of the other big projects the Assembly will be launching this winter is a look at the roles of teaching and research at the College.
