During Monday’s meeting, Student Association President Neal Casey discussed the importance of the Special Neighborhood District and the remodeling of the Schine Student Center to enhance its appeal to students.

Casey said he gave a report to Syracuse University’s Board of Trustees about SA’s work with the Special Neighborhood District on the Thursday before Spring Break.

City Councilor-at-Large Jean Kessner had proposed in February to shrink the Special Neighborhood District that consists of some of the area east of campus, where many students live in apartments, Casey said.

Casey said his main concerns about student housing are centered on the ability of all students to get the housing they need. He said SA has no official position on this proposal because there are many different considerations to make, such as SU’s obligation to the community of permanent residents in the area. These have to be balanced with the need for student housing, Casey said.

‘I was able to at least give a student perspective, which is something that was very much lacking in the discussion,’ he said.

The ordinance, which was adopted last June and is enforced in the Special Neighborhood District, requires any building being converted to a rental property to have one parking space for each potential bedroom.

The ordinance was verified by a state Supreme Court judge, according to an article published Thursday in The Post-Standard. Casey said he had no knowledge of this ruling, but his goal of including the student voice in the decision-making process remains the same.

‘Our primary goal is to make sure that students have a voice in the whole process,’ Casey said.

Casey also spoke about the opportunity SU has to make Schine a more popular area for students now that there is the possibility of the bookstore moving to a new building on University Avenue. Casey described SU as ‘decentralized.’

At other universities, Casey said, student centers are often bustling with student activity at all hours of the day and night. This is not the case in Schine, he said.

‘What you find in ours is that it’s pretty much dead by six o’clock,’ Casey said.

He said the goal should be to make Schine’s environment more welcoming for students whether or not the bookstore moves out of Schine. He said changes could be made to the physical layout and to the aesthetics of the place to try to make it more appealing to students.

Several elections also took place during Monday’s meeting.

Sydney Lampe and Steffie Marshalina, both freshmen broadcast and digital journalism majors, were elected to the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication’s final two open seats of the six allotted in the student assembly.

Alissa Way, a freshman interior design major, was elected to one of the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ four open seats, and Christopher Schultz, a sophomore information studies and technology major, was elected to one of the School of Information Studies’ three open seats.

Casey said the goal is to have as much representation as possible.

‘We’re pushing for 100 percent representation in the fall,’ he said.

Other business discussed:

• The Department of Academic Affairs is working with the bookstore to try to create a book-swap program.

• Assemblymembers Sean Dinan and Lynde Folsom are working on gathering data on the enrollment of each school over the past several years and the number of professors at each school in the same time period.

spcotter@syr.edu

Published on March 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm