LUCC cabinets transition

The next cabinet of the Lawrence University Community Council (LUCC) was sworn in on Monday, Feb. 27 at the last general council meeting of the term. The 2017–18 cabinet is as follows:

-Lewis Berger, president

-Naomi Oster, vice-president

-Rufino Cacho,

parliamentarian

-Jazleen Galvez, general

secretary

-Colleen Murray, finance

secretary

-Umer Amer, treasurer

-Savvas Sfairopoulos, public

relations secretary

This cabinet hopes to address a wide range of issues on campus, for example, inclusion of international student concerns and voices, food accessibility, student minimum wage concerns, counseling services underfunding and more.

“Our goal as a cabinet is to listen to what students are talking about and try to point people in the right direction and empower student groups to complete their mission and make Lawrence a better, safer place,” said Oster.

“LUCC-specific things we want to do are make everything a little more efficient and get people more engaged, whether that be class representatives or chairs,” Berger added. “Then there is easier communication with the whole student body; more transparency.”

Sfairopoulos added, “It’s exciting to see that already things are starting to change, especially efficiency in the way we run meetings.”

Applications for cabinet positions were available for all students on campus.

“We targeted different groups on campus [by] sending emails out to groups,” Berger said, in addition to advertising applications. “There was a lot of reaching out to specific individuals that we thought might be interested and valued their voices. It was very intentional in reaching out to individuals and groups that we wanted to be represented in our cabinet.”

As a result of reaching out to all corners of campus, the new cabinet consists of students from within LUCC and from outside the organization.

“Lewis and I ourselves are not really from inside LUCC,” said Oster, who is the former vice-chair of the Student Alliance against Sexual Harassment and Assault (SAASHA). Berger is the former co-chair of the Athletic and Conservatory Engagement Committee (ACE).

In these former positions, Oster and Berger did not see the inner workings of LUCC’s Steering and Finance Committees very often, the committees they now oversee.

Cacho and Murray also do not have experience with Steering and Finance. The other new cabinet members come from inside LUCC, involved either as class representatives or previous cabinet members.

“We’re really excited that people like Jazleen and Umer and Savvas exist to guide us through some of the LUCC-specific regulations and also are there to be voices of how things used to work and how things can change,” added Oster.

General council meetings are every other Monday at 4:45 p.m. and are open to campus. The 2017–18 cabinet is eager to hear from any and all students on campus. “We want [LUCC] to be whatever the students want it to be,” said Berger.

“Our job as a cabinet is to empower student voices and that’s what we’re working to do,” concluded Oster.