At this week’s Student Government Association (SGA) meeting, senators were informed that MySeaport will be getting updated soon and that several projects related to on-campus biking are in the works. 

MySeaport

The academic affairs committee put a pin in their non-traditional resource page project since they received word that some changes to MySeaport will be coming soon. These changes might help address the lack of resources for non-traditional students and help save work for some SGA senators and administrators.  

Transportation

Jack Casterella, the SGA’s campus services committee chair, said that he recently met with Sharon Boyd, associate vice chancellor of business services, and said they are getting closer to adding a cross walk on the recreation fields on Price Drive. Casterella added that this project has been in the works for quite a while now, but said it appeared Boyd was feeling the pressure to finally address it. 

Additionally, they are adding another bike lane on Reynolds Drive near the parking decks. Now both sides of the street will accommodate bikers. There is also a study underway that is looking into adding a bike path from Kenan Auditorium to Leutze Hall and then Cahill Drive. In relation, once the coronavirus (COVID-19) is gone, they will be bringing back the bike share program. They are tentatively hoping for a fall 2021 comeback.

There are also efforts underway to potentially bring electric scooters to campus, like the ones seen in large cities. This project is in the early stages and Casterella said he would let senators know when he had more details. 

The current Lyft program, which would give students the option to get a free ride to and from campus, is in the due diligence phase according to Casterella.

“So it is not online yet,” said Casterella. “There’s a lot of hesitancy issues with relation to [the] COVID[-19 virus]. How many people are you going to allow in one car? Are you going to only say one person but if you don’t want to ride home alone, right? So they’re working through all these issues and I’ll have updates for you in the coming months. But they received a lot of positive feedback, so it looks like it will be happening.”

There is also a grant pending to bring electric vehicle charging stations to campus. Casterella said UNCW could get up to nine or 10 stations pending the grant’s approval. 

Lastly, his committee is working on updating Google Maps to accurately reflect changes on campus.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Latinx resource book, formally titled “Mi Communidad, mi Familia,” is in the final edits phase and Brianna Ramirez, the SGA’s director of diversity and inclusion, hopes to have it available soon.

Ramirez’s committee has also reached out to Paws4People at UNCW to collaborate and create a program educating people about service animals. They are also looking into providing more resources for first generation college students, especially since UNCW does not have many resources compared to other UNC System universities. 

Their committee is also working with student ambassadors to plan this year’s dive-in week. Dive-in week is an event to help promote inclusivity and spread cultural awareness. The tentative date is the first week of April. 

Lastly, the next Emotionally Intelligent Leadership (EIL) workshop will be on March 11. More information about this event and how to sign up can be found on WaveLink. 

Sustainability

Chris Harris, the SGA’s director of sustainability, said he is tentatively planning on moving the Bluethenthal Maintenance Day on March 12 to the Azalea Pinmill, located next to the Watson College of Education. Registration can be found on WaveLink. 

Harris also said that at the recent meeting of the Chancellor’s Sustainability Council, they decided to allocate $24,000 of their budget for taking inventory of all the trees on campus.

“The next time you have a hurricane, or a light storm that does a lot of damage to our trees, we can use the information we get from this service to claim the money and damage from the trees for insurance reasons,” said Harris. “It’s gonna be something that will last us a long time, and it’ll be very beneficial to start.”

In addition, the race to zero waste electronics collection event is going on now through March 27. Anyone can drop off unwanted electronics at the recycling center and more information can be found here.

Lastly, to address the lack of recycling bins on-campus, especially in dorms, Kat Pohlman, chief sustainability officer, and the chancellor’s sustainability committee are reviewing the waste bins standardization document.

“[This] is essentially going to mandate every building on campus, every dorm, academic space, anything like that, to have a standardized area, or mean of waste,” said Harris. “So wherever there’s gonna be trash can, there will also be recycling receptacles and or composting things. But we’re just going to be voting on this next week and then I’m not exactly sure when that’s going to happen. But I know that I brought this up a while ago and we never followed through. But really good progress is being made there.”

In Other News 

Matt Talone, the SGA president, and Sabrina Balent, the SGA vice president, sent in their proposal for the free menstrual product pilot program to the respective administrators. They hope to have the pilot program started before the end of the school year. 

The SGA is also working on a grab and go event to help promote the upcoming SGA student body president and vice president elections. More information will be provided soon. 

Lastly, Brayden Roberge, freshman class president, shared some student complaints about the new sophomore housing requirements at the recent dean Walker breakfast event.  

Previous meeting minutes and passed legislation can be found on the SGA’s website in addition to their Zoom meeting link.