SA gathers student concerns ahead of Board of Trustees meeting in November

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Students are raising concerns including transportation, food services, mental health counseling and housing with Syracuse University’s Student Association, members said.

As SU’s Board of Trustees prepares to meet in November, SA President David Bruen and Finance Board Member Dylan France are hosting events to gather student concerns to present at the meeting.

“Having those dialogues to put into that report that’s gonna go to the Board of Trustees is so important so that we can have these different, important issues discussed from the actual perspective of more and more students,” France said.

SA hosted a town hall meeting for students to raise their concerns on Sept. 20, though Bruen said the crowd was smaller than it had been at similar events in the past. SA first publicized the town hall on its Instagram on Sept. 19, a day before the event.

Using the feedback received from students at the town hall, Bruen and France are compiling a report detailing student concerns to present at the Board of Trustees meeting.

“I don’t want to say (what’s in the plan) for sure, because Dylan and I are still doing work to kind of synthesize the feedback that we’ve gotten,” Bruen said.

SA released results of the “No Problem Too Small” tabling event, which France and Bruen will use in their report. Half of the students surveyed said a major problem at the university is its food quality, according to a Sunday press release. SA also found that at least 62.5% of respondents said that transportation was a major issue on campus.

Sianna Harvey, an SU junior who attended the town hall, said she attended because a friend of hers is one of SA’s Board of Trustees representatives. She said transportation, especially to and from South Campus, was a concern discussed by students.

“The buses that go to main campus, especially during class time, run back-to-back and by the time they get to your stop, the bus is full and they leave you behind,” she said.

Harvey said students also expressed a desire for better mental health resources at the Barnes Center at the Arch.

“While (walk-in appointments are) available a lot of the appointments have to be done at like 8 a.m. as soon as they open,” Harvey said. “You’re not going to get an appointment or (it is going to take) three weeks to get scheduled in.”

France said SA will also cover sexual relationship violence and sustainability in its report and that these topics were still being discussed.

SA will hold a second town hall meeting this Tuesday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in room 500 of the Hall of Languages, according to an SA Instagram post.

Bruen hopes that students know SA is an intermediary for the student body and SU’s administration.

“I think what really is important is we hear from students, we hear the issues, we take it in, we look at the issue holistically, and then we try and identify what’s the best way that we can try and potentially solve this issue,” Bruen said.