The academic year is only just beginning, but the Student Association Executive Board has been working through the summer on projects and programs to benefit the campus community.
Some new initiatives they have set in motion include a student carpool program, a website where students can access the formerly confidential Student Opinion of Teacher (SOOT) surveys and a textbook rental service.
With the new high occupancy vehicle (HOV) carpool program, an upperclassman commuter who carpools with two or more other students is eligible to buy a special HOV parking pass. This pass, which all of the students carpooling in one car can share, will reserve a prime parking spot in either the visitors’ paid parking lot below Mountainview Community or the paid parking garages.
SA President Jared Kirschenbaum hopes the carpooling program will be a success, and looks forward to the opportunity to lower the University’s carbon footprint.
‘We pride ourselves on being one of the greenest campuses in the nation,’ Kirschenbaum said. ‘I hope that we can live up to the challenge of carpooling and using alternative methods of transportation.’
Another SA project that is nearing completion is the online database of SOOT surveys submitted by BU students in the past. The new website, www.mybingprofessors.com, allows students to search for the reviews of a particular class by course number and by the professor’s name.
Each question on a course’s SOOT survey is accompanied by all possible responses, with tallies indicating how many students chose a particular answer.
Daniel Rabinowitz, vice president of academic affairs, who has been working to make the SOOT surveys public for students since February, is excited to see the project in its last stages.
‘I’ve spent so much time dealing with this issue that it seems surreal that it’s almost complete,’ Rabinowitz said.
Rabinowitz said the SA has also collaborated with the University bookstore to help launch a textbook rental program, which currently offers a select number of books to be rented out from the bookstore at a cheaper price than buying them new. When accessing the bookstore online, students can see if a book has a renting option and then choose to do so.
If a book is specific to Binghamton University, then it will not be available to rent. Also, if a book is only used for a semester, it can’t be rented because it will not be reused, Rabinowitz said.
Approximately 35 percent of the books in the store are currently available to rent, according to Rabinowitz. He expects this number to rise in upcoming semesters.
Vice President for Multicultural Affairs Ed Mays said he is researching the possibility of holding a Culture Week on campus for students.
Clubs and organizations of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds would focus a portion of their programming into this week, giving students the chance to sample a variety of different cultures in a short period of time.
‘I want more people to show up to new and different events, not just the ones that they’re used to,’ Mays said.
The SA is also planning to expand late night bus services for Off Campus College Transport due to high demand, according to Vice President of Finance Adam Shamah.
Kirschenbaum has also met with Interim President Peter Magrath over the summer to discuss the current status of the SA on campus.
‘He offered his complete support and dedication to our organization,’ Kirschenbaum said. ‘We are very pleased to work with President Magrath and are looking for a very successful year.’