On April 12, during the weekly Student Government Association (SGA) meeting, President of SXU Dr. Keith Elder came by and discussed some future plans for the school, including planning a town hall meeting, building a student center, and moving different departments and organizations around to create more space on campus for all parties.
Towards the end of the meeting, Elder entered the Student Organization Center (SOC) to discuss some of his plans with SGA and to see how their proceedings worked, and to plan his first town hall meeting.
Elder plans to hold a town hall meeting on the morning of April 24, just before Taste Of SXU.
Elder also spoke about his plans to create a student union. Currently it’s unknown whether this space would be located in Warde, or if it would become its own building somewhere on campus.
Before Elder entered The SOC, SGA was discussing the idea of adding something to campus for student leisure, and how it would be planned out.
Another project Elder is interested in is bringing back an on-campus bookstore, where students, faculty, and alumni can purchase spirit wear and textbooks. SXU previously had a merchandise store, but it was removed in May 2021 to make space for the esports lounge.
With the lounge space being desired by multiple departments, Elder seeks to locate the potential bookstore somewhere else. One member of SGA named the info desk in the Andrew Conference Center (ACC) as a potential location. Her argument was that the space is underutilized and that placing a bookstore in the building would give it more purpose.
As he’s made clear in the past, Elder wants to know what students think will be best for their collegiate experience. If students would like to make their opinions and ideas for the school known, SGA’s meetings are held every Friday at noon and are open to the public.
Finally, the president is interested in moving around multiple departments on campus. To give each affected party more space to be productive, he wants to move the Ludden Speech And Language Clinic to the Driehaus Center across the street from campus, the Department Of Exercise Science to the Shannon Center, and the esports team to the basement of Pacelli.
According to Elder, by doing this every group will be in a more fitting space, and will have more capacity to be productive. While these plans are only speculative, student input remains important to Elder as he decides how to move forward.
For those interested in SGA and how they make decisions, they hold open meetings every Friday at noon. Likewise, students can keep up with SGA through Instagram and The Den and can contact the President through his email elder@sxu.edu.
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