Associate Vice Provost for Student Achievement Sheneeta White answered questions Thursday about St. Thomas’ faculty advising, including plans for a new structure, research opportunities and changes to classes in terms of online, asynchronous and in-person learning at the Undergraduate Student Government general council meeting at Scooter’s.
The council also discussed upcoming USG elections, announcing that intent to run packets for unfilled positions will be due Wednesday, April 20, and the commencement, sustainability, public safety and dining services committee’s gave updates.
Guest speaker: Sheneeta White
White announced that the university is applying for the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, which gives higher education institutions funding “to prepare undergraduate students for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities,” according to the McNair Scholars website.
“We have a really lovely 65-page document ready to be submitted to the federal government on April 20,” White said. “The whole goal of the McNair scholarship, their program, is to get students into graduate school.”
The program would support people of color and students of a certain economic status to get more opportunities in research programs as well as get them into graduate programs.
“It’s highly, highly competitive. It’s $500,000 over each year over five years, so it’s a really phenomenal thing in the area of research,” White said.
The McNair program was on St. Thomas’ campus before, but the university was not selected to continue the program, so the Excel! Research Scholars Program was created.
White said the university is looking for ways to improve its academic counseling and advising in the future.
“We’re about to do a complete overhaul and take a look at (advising), and the Provost has charged me with doing this,” White said. “Advising is still one of those purely centralized units that’s not embedded within colleges and schools, and maybe it’s time for us to start to shift on that.”
White will take a look at different university’s models to see what could work at St. Thomas.
“That will be what our team will be doing is benchmarking (to) figure out what’s going to be best for St. Thomas and trying to standardize things a little bit better throughout the university,” White said.
Hybrid classes have become more popular at St. Thomas, and White said classes with different attendance options will continue at the university.
“The colleges and schools are more aware that you all want a diversity of course options being hybrid, blended (and) in-person,” White said.
White also pointed to the fact that grades have not changed much since more online options were offered.
“We have not seen a significant decline in student grades or more students being on probation,” White said. “There has been a slight increase, I will say that, but it’s not one that has necessarily caused alarms.”
Spring election updates
Rosie Salem, senior and current VP of Academic Affairs, gave updates on the upcoming elections that will be held from April 27-29 via a link sent to students’ emails with results being announced on April 29.
Intent to run packets were originally due Wednesday, April 13, but that date has now been extended to Wednesday, April 20 for the positions that have not been filled. Those positions include seven in the general council and one on the executive board.
Those intending to run for the executive board position will need 50 endorsement signatures while the general council will need 25. On Tuesday, April 27 USG will hold an e-board meeting in Scooter’s before the election begins.
Committee updates
The commencement committee said it has been working on preparing for undergraduate student speaker submissions as well as planning events for senior days.
The sustainability committee reminded the council that sustainability week will start on Tuesday, April 19, the day after Easter break ends.
The public safety committee announced the department will be holding a s’mores event on Friday, April 22. Details for the event can be found on TommieLink.
The dining services committee met with dining services and is looking to increase publicity on what dining services has to offer. The committee also hopes to make dining halls more inclusive for first-years by putting a specific table where students can interact. Dining services also requested that USG publicize the need for student workers.
Finance and Club Requests
There were no finance or club requests at the meeting.
Scout Mason can be reached at maso7275@stthomas.edu.