UOSA President Amanda Holloway and Vice President Vince Winston haven’t strayed far from the focus of their campaign promises since they took office nearly a year ago.
Parking, one of their largest promises, was among the pair’s top priorities.
“Parking was the first thing we focused on,” Holloway, advertising and marketing senior, said. “There was absolutely no accountability in the Parking Appeals Board – some people didn’t even know that they had been appointed.”
Since the discovery of the disorganized board, the pair has reorganized the Parking Appeals Board by appointing an all-new board and clearing over 300 parking appeal requests, she said.
“Amanda and Vince have coordinated a lot with Parking Services,” said Chris Glenn, OU Parking and Transportation Department public relations director. “The Appeals Board has never been better. They have been great and very receptive.”
After tackling the parking dilemma, the team pushed through their platform by addressing building maintenance issues.
Holloway said she and Winston, public affairs administration and African and African-American studies senior, inspected several of the older buildings on the South Oval like Dale, Kaufman and Nielsen Halls. They took an inventory of broken desks, chairs and other objects and sent the reports to the OU Physical Plant where the reports are currently being looked over.
The Undergraduate Student Congress came to Holloway and Winston and expressed interest in dead week reform, one of Holloway and Winston’s platform issues, Holloway said.
“It was something that we started last year,” said Kurt Davidson, chairman of the Under-graduate Student Congress. “It is basically said and done; we’re just waiting on a response from the Faculty Senate meeting in March.”
The dead week reform would allow more time for students to study before finals.
Holloway and Winston also addressed the amount of funding offered to international students. The two have been working with the International Advisory Council and have accomplished many things to help international students.
The team began working on international student issues by speaking to many different international student groups. After receiving a lot of feedback through interaction and surveys, Holloway and Winston acted on the students’ concerns.
The first thing they did was contact Career Services and begin work on a virtual career fair for international students.
The virtual career fair is a unique online tool that allows international students to be contacted by recruiters who might not come to the OU campus to recruit, said Betty Scott, director of Career Services.
The link has been up for about a month and should be up for the rest of the spring, Scott said.
Holloway and Winston are also trying to make international students more aware of health care plans available from Goddard and different ways to become involved with the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Association.
The team is currently working with UOSA and OU officials to establish more funding for student organizations. Funding has continually decreased over the previous years, Holloway said.
“At this point, I can say that the funding will not decrease again, despite the economy being the way it is,” Holloway said.
No final result has been reached, but she and Winston are confident they can acquire more funding for students organizations, she said.
Their campaign platform has been the pair’s main focus, but Holloway and Winston have taken on other projects like working with OU’s budget, investigating a new and more uniform advising program, acquiring $100,000 in scholarships for students looking to study abroad and the possibility of establishing a bike rental run by the university.
Holloway, Winston’s Platform
• Increase funding for student organizations
• Push for maintenance of campus buildings
• Establish more funding for international students
• Decrease workload during dead week
• Revamp university parking policy
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TAG 3 years, 3 months ago
Good job on keeping the same and possibly increasing the money to student organizations. Also the bike rental program for our campus is behind. Other universities are already reaching new heights with theirs across the nation. I am glad to see this being worked one.