revised SGA bylaws<\/a>, Vice president Ian Kariuki also serves as speaker of the Senate, combining duties previously held by two separate positions.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019ve been part of a lot of different successes and opportunities outside the SGA, and that helped us a lot,\u201d Kariuki said. \u201cWe were students together, now we\u2019re leaders together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ensuring support<\/p>\n
With the new structural foundation finalized, the immediate focus is on legislative efforts on daily campus quality of life issues, and to ensure students feel supported, starting with the ordinary things, said Cockrell and Kariuki.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cockrell highlighted the importance of the quality services and the state of the campus within. Their goal of improving the quality is to better the day-to-day life for students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Transit safety initiatives\u00a0<\/p>\n
Safety and campus mobility are top of the executive agenda. Having campaigned on a platform of student safety, Cockrell and Kariuki are reviewing transit services with the Department of Parking and Transportation to create shuttle efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are currently working with parking and transportation on the overall shuttle quality,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cWe are reviewing those services, making sure that you\u2019re getting from A to B, and in the timeframe that you are supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
The administration is also targeting the University\u2019s transit safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCougar Ride services are something that we\u2019re helping to improve and engage for students, not just to make it to places, but to make it more effective, more efficient and safe,\u201d Kariuki said. \u201cGetting people in those vehicles and making sure that they\u2019re actually safe and secure is something that we want to emphasize.\u201d<\/p>\n
Financial transparency\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond physical safety, the administration will be focusing on using their platform to address student affordability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cockrell and Kariuki have already launched My Total Cost Planner alongside the financial administrators. The app breaks down tuition, fees and has an add on features for housing and meal plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To abide by the new constitutional emphasis on transparency, Cockrell confirmed that the new official SGA budget will be released to the public in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be transparent in what SGA is doing with the funds and what we anticipate doing,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cSo in August, we will have our budget. It\u2019ll be released and it will be public as is every other year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reintroducing SGA to the students\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cockrell and Kariuki have goals to expand student engagement and alumni involvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a career service that we\u2019re trying to get more mentors from our alumni to help mentor the students on our campus,\u201d Kariuki said. \u201cIt is currently broken down to colleges, but we want to make it a portal where all the mentors are together and it would be a mentorship into life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The administration also hopes to reintroduce SGA to incoming students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had one freshman class that has come in with no SGA at all and another freshman class right now that\u2019s coming in, unfamiliar with what it is,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cThat\u2019s incredibly important to us because in order for this organization to operate the way that it should, you need the opinions of those who are going to be here the longest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
news@thedailycougar.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"University of Houston Student Government Association Vice President Ian Kariuki (left) and President Tav Cockrell pose for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[67675,56,58,57,67676,55452,139225],"class_list":["post-396441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-62nd-administration","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-sga","tag-student-government-assocation","tag-uh-parking-and-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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