Lack of Student Involvement

By Paola Pelaez

Hudson Valley’s Student Senate attempts to bring students together by hosting events throughout the year with the fees needed to host the events included in the tuition of all full-time students.These events vary from educational conferences to festivals. However, there are many students who find themselves too occupied to attend some of the events, if any at all.

“We get our budget from the student activity fees, which is a fee attached to the tuition,” said Jesse Tilley, president of the Student Senate. “All full time students will pay the fee, which goes to Student Activities. They then distribute the money to the Student Senate and the athletics department.”

“We have two primary goals here, basically. One is representation because we have a lot of members which sit on committees around here,” said Tilley.

The other goal the Student Senate is currently working on is finding students’ interests. The Senate tries to accomplish this by accepting ideas from students on events they wish to see on campus.

For example, a student approached the Senate last February with the idea of having an event on body awareness since it was body awareness month.

Effort is put into the organization of these events, but the problem just might be that not enough students are attending them

“There are events where we get full houses. Other events are not as full, but [we never have] an event where it is completely empty or just one students shows up,” said Tilley.

“I don’t attend any school events here. [This is] mainly due to the fact that I have a very busy schedule between working and going to school. But, also because I’m not interested in going,” said Marissa Butto, second year criminal justice major.

“Though I hear the events that will happen through people, I can’t go to them because I have homework to do,” said Courtney O’Neil, a first year fine arts major. “I don’t have enough time to attend them.”

“Since I have a lot of work to do I really have no time to attend these events. Although I have attended a couple events, such as Pumpkin Palooza and I’ve enjoyed it,” said Ruben George, first year respiratory care major.