PSGA Blog Number 15: Culture Shock Theme Announced, Proposed Increase in Transportation Fee, and Sustainability

The PSGA met on Wednesday, March 11 for 25 minutes with a short agenda due to the rally of students protesting SUNY tuition increases and budget cuts outside of Student Services. With few items besides executive reports and general funds requests, Major Events Coordinator Jeff Levin raised the most attention from the Senate with his reports on Culture Shock.

Levin announced that this year’s theme for the yearly festival would be Carnivàle in relation to the HBO series that he referred to as an abandoned carnival atmosphere. He also said he was working with students to find more “cultural bands” to fill the final eight slots left for the show.

Levin is waiting for band contracts from Streetlight Manifesto and The Cool Kids, and announced that he was working to secure hip-hop act Drake to add more culture to the lineup. He said if he could not secure Drake, he would seek word from another hip hop act, Little Brother.

The zipper was the only ride Levin said he might confirm for Culture Shock and that it would be located behind the stage near the V.A. building, on the opposite side of the field from last year. Levin also said a photographer would be near the ride taking “Culture Shock ’09” photographs of students vomiting into a bucket for sentimental value.

Chair of the Senate Russ Zambito said that he went to Albany on Tuesday to protest SUNY tuition hikes with PSGA President Joe Matoske, General Programming Coordinator Becky Sellinger, and other SUNY students. “It was fun, yet a little upsetting because [Purchase students] are so uneducated on how the tuition increases will affect us,” he said.

The Purchase College Association asked the Senate to endorse their proposal to increase the transportation fee so that more Purchase buses could operate and confine to more flexible hours. The Senate decided to table the discussion until their next meeting after spring break so that actual figures could be examined and debated.

“I don’t think we can decide on this until we talk to our constituents about it first,” said Senator James Blinstrub of commuters. According to Collymore, the PCA would not act upon the new fee unless it created a positive response from the student body.

Senator Alexander Rossin of the Commons said the PCA and Lindsay Randall of the environmentally sustainable task force discussed sustainable ideas for the future including more Zip Cars, possible reduced fees on taxi services, possible reform of students’ metro card systems, and opportunities for faculty to take mass transit to campus.

The Senate unanimously approved CoCOaS Coordinator Kevin Collymore’s request to take $4,500 from the general reserves to replenish both the CoCOaS supply room fund and the general fund. Collymore said that the general fund was $2,000 less than last year and that more funds were needed to keep the account productive.

Before the meeting adjourned, Collymore proposed that the Senate considered helping create a Residence Life Ad-hoc committee so that students could have a bigger say in the room selection process.