UB's SUNY Delegates were not only successful in accumulating more seats on the assembly's executive committee than any other school this April, they were also able to bring a monthly e-board meeting to the Buffalo area this past weekend.
According to Christopher Mendoza, delegate and alternate university center representative, this is the first time any such meeting has occurred in this area for more than five years.
"This year we definitely took more of a proactive approach," Mendoza said. "Not only getting into these elected positions, but also bringing SUNY SA (here) and giving exposure to UB, to show them what they've been missing all of these years."
The SUNY Student Assembly is the statewide student government of the SUNY system, and meets twice a year. After being elected to e-board positions, however, some of UB's delegates are now a part of the monthly executive committee meetings.
"We pushed for it," said Melody Mercedes, UB delegate and secretary of the committee. "The point of bringing the conference here and hosting was pretty much so that we could discuss the things that we plan on doing later."
Next month is the semi-annual conference with all SUNY delegates, and according to Mercedes, UB will be proposing two resolutions.
The first is a ban on bookstores "shrink-wrapping," or bundling required textbooks with non-required ones.
"We want to propose something for all sixty-four schools to actually go by, to reduce the cost of books for students," Mercedes said.
According to Mendoza, many students are stuck with useless books that cost them hundreds of dollars.
"The University Bookstore is notoriously guilty of doing that all of the time," he said. "I'm sure that every student has an experience where they only needed one book, but it was shrink-wrapped together with four other books."
Mendoza also said that the bookstore has a monopoly on books with such a practice, and there is no current legislation to protect against it.
"Hopefully this will be a correct, progressive step in the right direction," he said of their recent call to action.
The delegates' proposed resolution is in regard to 24- hour library usage.
"We just recently got students access to a library 24 hours a day, seven days a week here," said Eliot Sherman, UB delegate and university center representative. "A lot of other SUNY schools don't yet have this opportunity. It's something that we've pursued here and been successful with, so we want to spread it, and have other schools champion the same cause."
At other SUNY schools, libraries are not open past 6 p.m. any day of the week, according to Sherman, "before some students, like myself, even wake up."
Another issue that the delegates say they find important involves entering UB in "SUNY Rock the Vote," a New York State version of the voting program that encourages young people to get involved in the election process and vote.
"It's a club that handles the registration process," Mercedes said. "'Rock the Vote' is a huge project within the assembly."
The campaign would closely cover governor's elections.
"SUNY, first and foremost is affected by whoever is in the governor's seat," she said. "This October we will officially say what candidate we're backing."
Mendoza added that some dissent existed at the meeting regarding a campus-wide smoking ban proposed by the SUNY Board of Trustees.
"The smoking ban started as something that the Board of Trustees was successful in doing in residence halls," he said.
Sherman explained that a campus-wide ban was not right for a student body this large.
"As an example, on UB's campus, which is just massive, it's completely unrealistic for someone to go off campus to smoke," he said. "There are students and there (are) faculty (who) smoke."
Mendoza agreed that the ban on smoking within fifty feet of residence hall buildings was supported, but did not include the entire campus.
The delegates said that they would be more interested in a more selective smoking ban, however, such as one on heavily populated areas on campus.
"We might support a smoking ban on heavily populated (areas) on campus... such as outside the Student Union," Sherman said.
Mendoza explained that bringing a conference here was a goal accomplished, and the delegates hope to get a lot done at the semi-annual conference next month.
"That was definitely one underlying purpose of having this executive meeting going on," he said. "Just to show (SUNY) that even when we're not around, Buffalo and UB should be one of the options in your head for next year, and years beyond that."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
