Engineering Student Government started its meeting Wednesday night with community input from David Schafer, president of Central Student Government and an LSA senior, regarding the potential for a more collaborative future between the two respective student governments.
Schafer addressed concerns regarding CSG representation of Engineering students and reaffirmed his commitment to more effectively representing students’ interests.
Schafer cited CSG’s role on North Campus — including a condom distribution event and improvement in access to mental health resources — but recognized that there may be questions about what else CSG is doing to benefit students there. Schafer also promised to encourage the 11 Engineering representatives who sit on the CSG Assembly to start attending the ESG meetings in order to do better and more sustained outreach with ESG.
“I pledge to all of you tonight that I’m going to be working with my commissions, asking them and encouraging them, to hold more events on North Campus, because for every event that we do on Central Campus I deeply believe we should have an event on North Campus as well,” Schafer said.
Following his presentation, ESG members asked follow-up questions and offered suggestions to create a more collaborative relationship between the two governments.
Engineering senior Neha Chopra asked Schafer to differentiate between the roles of members of ESG and Engineering representatives on CSG, aiming to ensure that the two student government bodies are not duplicating efforts. Schafer suggested an addition be made to CSG bylaws that would require CSG members to attend their respective school or college student government meeting once a month or once a semester.
“I think a lot of it is really strengthening and institutionalizing linkages of communication between each governing body, Schafer said “and I think that that is something that all of us should aim to do.”
The meeting continued to cover new business, in which the development of a biomedical engineering minor was discussed.
Engineering sophomore Xavier Yeshayahu introduced the idea, and noted the number of minors offered in LSA subjects is significantly higher than the minor options in Engineering subjects.
“Our BME program is really comprehensive and really open to different majors,” Yeshayahu said.
Because of the fast growth in the BME field, Yeshayahu thinks the minor would increase interest in the BME, particularly for graduate students. The idea received substantial support from the members of ESG.
Engineering sophomore Ainsley Ashman Jr. supported the idea, but expressed concern about the development process.
“I really like this idea, but I know that the process of approving new courses is cumbersome so getting a whole new minor approved could be very difficult to do, but I think it’s a great idea,” Ashman said.