Increasing campus-wide awareness remains at the top of the Undergraduate Council of Students' agenda this year, said Diane Mokoro '11, the council's president.
Mokoro and the rest of this year's executive board aim to increase the council's visibility by improving communication with students and administrators.
Along with Mokoro, Vice President Ben Farber '12 also said the council needs to increase its presence on campus this year. He said community time — time allotted at the beginning of each council meeting for community concerns — could serve as a resource for students. "We do well when we have student feedback," he said.
The council already started promoting awareness at the activities fair, Mokoro said, where UCS members handed out slips that explained how the council works on campus for those who do not actually want to join the council.
UCS also hopes to facilitate improvements made to advising — an "item always on the UCS agenda," Farber said.
"UCS has been working a lot on changing advising at Brown," said Eden Castro '12, chair of the council's academic and administrative affairs committee. Castro worked over the summer to create an advisory handbook to better provide orientation to the system, and she said she has been in collaboration with Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron to discuss these advising improvements. She added that they are trying to work on changing the "fundamental difference between how students were conceptualizing advising and how faculty" conceive of the process.
Castro also said UCS should work on improving advising this year in light of strides made in advising by administration and other leaders last year. Newly implemented resources such as Advising Central and the Matched Advising Program for Sophomores, which was initiated by Molly Jacobson '10, were designed to provide a more well-rounded advising experience, The Herald reported last year. With this momentum, "UCS has been working a lot on changing advising at Brown," Castro said.
"It is really the role of UCS to be the voice of the student body and administration," Castro added. Along these lines, the council also has many goals to increase interactions with the administration and student organizations on campus in the year ahead.
UCS plans to continue to engage with the Organizational Review Committee, Mokoro said. Last year, a student advisory group that included council members heard presentations from the majority of the ORC subcommittees and provided input about the proposals, which dealt largely with the University's budget. Some of the recommendations made by the group were adopted by the committee, Farber said, calling this result an example of a "huge success" that the council took part in last year.
Farber also said UCS would like to better communicate with the representatives that it appoints to University committees. After collaboration between the council's campus life committee and the review committee's subcommittee on athletics and physical education last year produced positive results, Farber said he hopes this communication can be expanded to other groups as well.
Student Activities Chair Ralanda Nelson '12 also called for "strengthening the bond between UCS and (the Undergraduate Finance Board)." The student council and the finance board already successfully worked together to advocate for the creation of an endowment for student activities, which should help prevent continued increases to the student activities fee, according to Farber. "It's a better way to sustain student activities on campus," Nelson said, adding that she is "looking forward to raising money."
Nelson said UCS releases an agenda every year to provide a better sense of goals. The agenda will come out before Thanksgiving break, she said, and a later spring agenda will help determine what has been accomplished and what still needs to be done.
"I'm very excited for UCS this year," Farber said. "I have a lot of confidence in the chairs and confidence in our potential."
The council will be holding an information session Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m. in place of its regular meeting. It will hold its first regular meeting the following week.
