Although elections ended only two weeks ago, next year's Student Association Executive board has already gotten a jump-start on addressing their goals for the coming year.
The officers said one of their priorities is making interaction easier between teaching assistants with poor English skills or heavy accents and the students that have a tough time understanding them. They presented this concern to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee on Wednesday.
The reform calls for stricter language requirements for TAs and proposes revisions to the language exam currently administered to TA applicants. Through these improvements, SA President-elect Viqar Hussain said he hopes to ease the burden of confusing recitation classes and labs.
"We want to bridge the communication gap between TAs and students," Hussain said. "It is unfair for students if they have a TA who speaks with a hard-to-understand accent, and we should create some measures to prevent this."
Some members of the FSEC agreed that the TA-to-student language barrier is a pressing issue in need of a solution.
"It's the obligation of the university to meet the needs of the students, and the TA situation is far from settled," said H. William Coles III, a SUNY senator and assistant vice provost for the Educational Opportunity Program.
While many agreed that the need exists, other faculty members argued that some of the most brilliant lecturers have accents, and, with a little extra effort, a student can have a great educational experience.
"It is possible that the language of some TAs hurt a student's education, but we must avoid being intolerant of accents," said Barbara Rittner, associate professor at the school of social work and director of the Ph.D. program.
Rittner also stated that her department takes student evaluations of TAs very seriously.
"We use mid-semester evaluations in which students are able to give honest input about their TAs," she said. "If TAs have to be yanked from their position to benefit students, then we would most certainly do that."
In addition to the discussion of a TA language requirement, SA Vice President-elect Leslie Meister shared a new transportation proposal that would provide bussing for students living at Sweethome Apartments.
Meister said SA hopes to land an efficient shuttle system from the Sweethome Apartments to campus, which would be in coordination with the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority's Unlimited Ride Program. Sweethome residents, along with any other UB student, would have the option to purchase a $25 card to use the service.
"Students don't have to worry about a raise in the comprehensive fee for the additional benefit, because the pass would be entirely voluntary," said Peter Grollitsch, the SA treasurer-elect.
Meister highlighted SA plans to improve club resources by purchasing more vans. She also revealed that certain club paperwork would be available online, making it easier for clubs to fill out required forms on time.
Although the meeting was just a preliminary discussion about future change, FSEC Chair Peter Nickerson praised the new officers for their proposals.
"I look forward to working with the new SA staff and hope that these ideas become more than just proposals in the future," Nickerson said.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
