New members were sworn in, Vice President for Student Affairs Karen Lange discussed updates from Student Affairs and a Dougherty Family College update was given at the Undergraduate Student Government general council meeting Thursday, Oct. 7 at Scooter’s.
New members
USG swore in six new members from their fall election, including Vice President of Finance Angelica Franaschouk, Vice President of Student Engagement Kailey Corder, Neighborhood Senator – Macalester-Groveland Ben Hackett, First-year Class President Jake Manske and First-year Class Senators Alexis Bailey and Hannah Samuelson.
Guest speaker: Karen Lange
Lange addressed various updates from Student Affairs. The University Action and Response Team decided to continue requiring masks on campus due to the COVID-19 infection rate in counties surrounding St. Thomas.
“We have metrics that we’re looking at and we’ve consulted with the Minnesota Department of Health,” Lange said. “We’re looking at Hennepin and Ramsey counties and we’re doing that because we all spend time outside of the university and we’re watching the positivity rate in both those counties and hoping and looking for it to go below a 5% positivity rate.”
Lange noted that while the positive infection rates of the surrounding counties remain above 5%, with 5.6% positive last week, staff and students have been showing high vaccination rates.
“We’re at 88.5% for our vaccination rate, and our students are at 87.8%,” Lange said. “That continues to inch up.”
Student Affairs has also been focusing on student engagement on campus, including welcoming first-year students and hosting events for sophomores.
“We know we can help students get engaged, and they can engage with other students that have similar interests, and that gives them the confidence to be able to engage with the entire university,” Lange said.
Another way Student Affairs is engaging students is with a new requirement that students must live in on-campus housing during their first two academic years.
“We’re doing that because we know that it shows students who live on campus, do well on campus, engage on campus and have more resources close to them, ” Lange said.
The University also started a capital campaign to raise money for various things on campus, including student scholarships and the STEAM building for science, technology, engineering, arts and math. Lange says that the funds will also support the nursing program, which is in the accreditation process.
“We feel very confident that we will get accredited and start our nursing program next fall,” Lange said.
Lange spoke for Student Affairs when she addressed the harmful events that happened on campus the previous week, including an external group posting offensive stickers and posters on campus and the controversial TikTok creator speaking near campus.
“The faculty and staff and students did a great job of letting us know about it, and Facilities Management and Public Safety took those down as soon as they could,” Lange said.
Dougherty Family College update
DCF Representative Kal Animut provided an update, including how the student advisory board at DFC is improving student engagement.
“One way we’re doing that is by reaching out to them about events that are happening at the four-year campus and reaching out to them about different clubs they can get involved in,” Animut said.
Animut also discussed creating spaces, like public town hall meetings, where students can share ideas and express their feelings, so that they can feel heard and hear from different perspectives, Animut said.
“We do town halls, and we try to do them every week and open up the space for students to come in and share about their perspectives, mainly about issues that are ongoing issues on campus and off campus and worldwide,” Animut said.
Club funding requests were not discussed in this meeting.
Natalie Hoepner can be reached at hoep8497@stthomas.edu.