Earlier this week, the Student Life Report committee released their finalized 50-something page document about student life. The report primarily focuses on the advisory boards and GPB, but does summarize intellectual life and administrative accountability too. You can find the entire report at the end of this post, but in case you don’t want to read the entire thing, Vox has pulled out the interesting bits for you.

Space

A big ticket issue on campus is centralized space booking: everyone wants to put all space booking under one office. In addition to that SLR2012 recommends that the university renegotiate with Aramark to give better (and cheaper) access to the ballrooms.

On that note, SLR2012 also recommends reducing or eliminating the fees performing arts groups must pay for space.

In many respects, it seems that Georgetown’s issues may be easily solved by simply making [performance] spaces more readily available and less expensive to use. Almost all groups see the requirement to pay for performance space as a hindrance to their ability to regularly perform or attract large audiences. No other surveyed schools required their student groups to pay for use of performance spaces. (p. 40)

For club sports, SLR2012 mainly wants bureaucratic reform so club sports stops getting the short end of the stick in athletic facilities. Specifically, the reports suggests that club sports be allows to use McDonough after the new athletic center is built and that the hospital not expand onto North Kehoe.

Money

The big ticket item in the SLR1999 was the complete dearth of funding for student organizations on campus. Thus was created the student activities fee. Thirteen years, six points of reform, and a couple referenda later, the amount of money for student organizations isn’t as much of a problem as how it is allocated. One suggestion SLR2012 makes is putting the gift account under GUSA control. Currently donors can give money to “student activities” broadly defined, and the money goes to SAC. SLR2012 says the money should be allocated at the budget summit so more groups have access to the funds.

Also, SLR2012 says student groups should be able to audit themselves, but in order to do this, they need online access to their cost centers and timely charges by for space and such by other campus offices.

Finally on money, the SLR2012 suggests a referendum on whether or not students want to create a separate fee for the Spring Concert. It doesn’t actually call for the creation of the fee, but the report does throw the idea out there.

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In a town hall-style meeting on Thursday night, the students behind the forthcoming Student Life Report 2012 fielded questions and led discussions about their findings and recommendations.

As previously reported, the authors of the report found a strong correlation between involvement in on-campus activities and overall student happiness. The report recommends giving student groups greater autonomy, a step that would maximize student efficacy and by extension student satisfaction with their Georgetown experience.

Chair of the Student Life Committee Shuo Yan Tan (SFS ‘12) emphasized that ultimately the achievability of the committee’s suggestions rests on the bodies they concern. The administration needs to step back, Tan said, and provide the right level of protection, support, and advice, while simultaneously trusting students to control their own activities.

Authors of the report visited nine other campuses across the country in an effort to compare Georgetown’s administration of activities with the systems of peer institutions. GUSA vice presidential candidate Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ’13) echoed Tan’s sentiment, noting that in her research comparing Georgetown with Cornell University, she found that the students in Ithaca were less constrained by bureaucracy, but ultimately less self-motivated as well.

“Georgetown students take so much initiative,” Kohnert-Yount said. “But we’re held back by a lot of hoop-jumping.”

Vice-presidential hopeful Sheila Walsh (COL ’14) addressed the proposed merger of the Georgetown Program Board and What’s After Dark. While each group’s funding is drawn from a different source, Walsh cited the groups’ similar missions in her defense of the report’s recommendation.

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This Thursday at 8:30 p.m. in the Leavey Program Room, the authors of the Student Life Report 2012 will unveil some findings from their brainchild: a 40-something page report on student life and involvement at Georgetown. And if Thursday is too long to wait, Vox has a preview for you.

The authors of the report found a high correlation between engagement on campus and student satisfaction. So, to improve student life, participation in student organisations need to be made easier and more enjoyable. As the authors said in a press conference yesterday, engaging student interests should come before paperwork. The authors identified three key themes for improving student life: autonomy, transparency, and assessment.

Although the release date for the document itself is still TBD and the list of recommendations isn’t finalized, Vox has some of more specific (and heavily paraphrased) recommendations from SLR 2012.

• Centralized space booking and published space costs
• Online access for student groups to their cost centers
• More timely charges by OCAF to groups
• More student control of student money
• Codification of sanctions for groups and a fairer appeals process
• Continuation of the Hoya Roundtables
• Office hours for President DeGioia and Vice President Olson
• More transparency and consistancy in the SAC funding process
• Merge What’s After Dark and GPB
• Encourage more undergraduate research
• Hold a second SAC fair during the year

If this isn’t enough for you, we have the executive summary after the break.

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