Looking Back with President Menard
By Paul Samaha ‘17
“My name is Andrew Menard, and I am the undergraduate student body president. I come to you now as President who only has a couple short months left…”
During the annual State of USC Address given by current 2014-2015 President Andrew Menard, insight was given to the inner workings of USC’s powerful Undergraduate Student Government. President Menard reflected on the many triumphs and few struggles that he, Vice President Rini Sampath and their large administrative team encountered in the current academic year. He also spoke of a promising future, built off many initiatives that he and his team started this year. A few highlights from his term below:
✔ This past summer, renovations to Leavey Library began. If anyone has stepped foot in the 1994-established library, you know that it looks as if it hasn’t been touched since it’s opening, and a renovation was longtime necessary. The basement and outdoors area have already been renovated, and they look great.
✔ In the coming academic school year, the deadline to drop a class (or change from taking a letter grade to pass/no pass) has been extended from three weeks to seven. This is a great achievement, especially for those of us who aren’t always sure about the classes we sign up for until we are immersed in the class for several weeks.
✔ USC is known for having a large admitted population of students in the spring compared to most large universities. Despite such a large population of spring admits, they often are a step behind in joining a Trojan Family that was already established months before them in the fall. USG created the first-ever spring admits guide, sent to all spring admits to help ease their transition and educate them on all of the possibilities for campus involvement at USC.
✔ An amnesty policy, proposed by the Undergraduate Student Government, was approved by the University. This policy protects students from a legal perspective if they are to report an incident while under the influence of alcohol. This is extremely important as sometimes an intoxicated student will need medical attention, but their friends may be afraid to call DPS because they are underage drinking themselves.
✔ A rainbow floor has existed for students in the LGBTQ community who feel comfortable living in a tolerant and inclusive environment together, but the rooms were limited by gender like the rest of USC housing. After much advocacy work, the rainbow floor has been granted permission to be gender-neutral, a very progressive step in the right direction for USC’s administration. The floor will begin its gender-neutral housing in fall 2016.
These are just a few of the many accomplishments of the Undergraduate Student Government in the 2014-2015 that President Andrew Menard spoke of during his State of USC Address (more USG accomplishments here). It is important to note that despite President Andrew Menard and Vice President Rini Sampath playing a large administrative role in many of these initiatives, it is ultimately up to their team of directors, assistant directors and senators to fulfill these ideas. With President-elect Rini Sampath and Vice President-elect Jordan Fowler’s inauguration for the 2015-2016 academic year just weeks away, it is a very exciting time to see what new initiatives these two women will accomplish after such a successful term for USG under the Andrew Menard and Rini Sampath leadership.
Want to find out more about the Undergraduate Student Government at USC? Check out their website here and their actively updated Facebook page here!
Photo of Andrew Menard by Kenneth Rodriguez of the Daily Trojan.
