Town Hall Meeting on Transportation and Food

The Student Government Association held a Town Hall Meeting at the end of March and ongoing issues of concern to OW students were discussed. The majority of the concerns involved the effectiveness of the shuttle bus and the student cafeteria. Students asked questions about the schedule of the shuttle buses and the demeanor of the drivers. Some ideas that students had were to propose a transportation fee in the tuition.

However, according to M.L. Langlie, vice president for student affairs, the administration believes this is unfair because residents mainly use the shuttle bus and a fee goes on everyone's whether or not they use the shuttle bus. Langlie also stated that unless there is a written statement, there is not much that can be done to implement change. "There is a survey about the shuttle bus located on the SUNY portal, however not much feedback is given by the students," says Langlie.

When it was time for students to state their comments, concerns, or suggestions about food services, many students had the common opinion that the cafeteria does not offer a wide selection of food and the hours of operation for the cafeteria are inconvenient because some students have classes and cannot make it on time to catch the last meal offered for the day. Chartwells is promoting different types of food and desserts monthly and having companies such as Naked, and Frito-Lay to share samples of their products with students of Old Westbury.

In this meeting, Langlie also pointed out that advising was pushed back due to the growth of enrollment and the administration was trying to figure about how many courses will be offered fall 2010. Not many students know where to go for advising or more importantly to whom to state their concerns.

The turnout of the first Town Hall Meeting of Spring 2010 was drastically undersized. There were a handful of students that attended the meeting, not including students affiliated with NYPIRG or SGA. The students that were present at the meeting said that they heard about the meeting shortly before it started; others that did not attend stated that they were completely unaware of the meeting. During the meeting this issue was brought up as it was evident that the student body was not represented.

"There is an issue with the advertising and how SGA is communicating to the student body." says Ernest Pope, senior commuter student of Old Westbury. The meeting progressed when Lisa Ribacoff, then the Executive President, Vice President and treasurer of SGA, apologized for the short notice of the town hall meeting and failure to utilize social networks to communicate to the student body. She then gave students the opportunity to ask any questions or state other concerns. She also stated that students need to remember that SGA is made up of students and they are trying their best to listen and cooperate with everyone. The SGA executive vice president and treasurer left SGA for this semester and many believe that this has worsened the effectiveness of the organization. "Due to the recent changes in E-board and people leaving, I think SGA has lost its ability to function on one accord," said a student who preferred to be anonymous.