Division of Student Affairs encourages students to join new Student Advisory Board

By Troylon Griffin II, Editor-in-Chief Last updated Nov 23, 2021 232 0

UHCL’s Division of Student Affairs (DSA) is launching a Student Advisory Board Spring 2022. The board is intended to be an opportunity for students to provide feedback about their concerns and experiences as students.

The board will meet once a month for an hour and the meetings are open to all students. The concept was proposed by Vice President of DSA, Aaron Hart in 2019.

“There were several concepts that I came up with when I took over as VPSA to make our administration more accountable to students,” Hart said. “You’re the reason we’re here. We work for you and we should be accountable to our students. The first thing was a student advocate. The second thing was to have a Student Advisory Board. Here at The University of Houston-Clear Lake the purpose of our advisory board is to have representatives from the entire student body, undergraduate and graduate, with no restrictions on who can be involved to serve the purpose of giving the top administration feedback, opinions and concerns on issues that affect our students.”

GRAPHIC: Visual depicts two silhouettes of heads, one red one blue. The red one has a thumbs up inside it while the blue one has a thumbs down. A thought bubble comes out the blue head showing a school. Graphic by The Signal Managing Editor of Content and Operations Troylon Griffin II. — The Student Advisory Board is intended to be an opportunity for students to provide feedback about their concerns and experiences as students. Graphic by The Signal Managing Editor of Content and Operations Troylon Griffin II.

Hart made it clear that there are no commitments required and that the board is meant to provide a time for students to speak with administrators.

“Not everyone has time to be a student leader,” Hart said. “This board gives students the chance to take one hour of their day with no commitments to help give feedback to their university administrators.”

The advisors for the board (who will be primarily responsible for hearing students’ concerns and relaying them to the necessary channels) are Hart, Associate Dean of Students Iliana Melendez, Dean of Students David Rachita and Assistant Vice President of Student Engagement Yvonne Hernandez-Friedman. Melendez said this is a great opportunity for students to voice their thoughts as UHCL changes.

“Students don’t get many opportunities like this,” Melendez said. “I think our campus is changing. Our student body is changing. We’re hopefully moving on in the post-COVID world. We’ve also had a huge administrative change right? We have an interim president. We’ll have a new president within the year so I think this is the opportunity for students to really (at least for the division of student affairs) give feedback and share what the student experience looks like for them. I think that’s really important and valuable. I tell all students your voice matters and you’re the most important part of us being here. If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have a job. I’m here to serve you. So if we don’t give our students the opportunity to let us know how we can best serve them then that’s a disservice to ourselves and the students.”

Promotion for the board begins next semester and the first meeting will take place at the end of January in the Garden Room.

“I realize that being a student in today’s environment is extremely challenging, and sometimes our students have concerns and challenges and they either do not have time to voice them or do not know how to voice them,” Hart said. “Here is an opportunity for every single student on this campus to be heard as equals. There are no position titles. There’s no one that has more power than anyone else. This is open to every student that can come in and be as vocal as they want with no restraints.”

Students can expect emails and other promotional messages about the board in the Spring.