Red Card and Campus Cash!

Did you know that your Red Card can get you discounts at local businesses or that a few places will also accept your Campus Cash just like a place on campus?

I really didn't know that either until I made this nifty brochure that tells you more about the programs and lists all the places and discounts. It is amazing how many different places in the community are willing to participate in these programs. If you can't get a hard copy of the brochure or think you might loose it - you can view it here:(Side One)

(Side Two)

Click on the images to view them larger and feel free to download them and print them out!

We Need an Election Board Chair

Even though the SGA elections don't occur until later in the Spring semester (April), we are looking for somebody to head up the election board now. The job of the Election Board Chair is to encourage as many students as possible to participate in the election, ensure that all of the candidates are playing fairly, and plan various election events. He or she also gets to recruit people to serve on the Election Board and gets a stipend. If you are interested, contact David Hoffman by email ( dhoffman@umbc.edu ) or stop by his office on the second floor of the Commons in the Student Organizations space. Training for the selected EBC begins next month.

You can also read the official announcement here.

Diversity Awareness Team

The Diversity Awareness Team is a group of UMBC staff and students that meet up biweekly, raising awareness regarding diversity issues across campus.

It's mission is to support the Division of Student Affairs mission to “foster student success” by providing on-going diversity awareness and cultural competence programs and events for divisional professional, administrative, and student staff as well as the UMBC community through nationally recognized diversity awareness months and religious/ethnic days of observance.

They recently changed the pictures that are on the mezzanine in the Commons so make sure to give it a glance when you have the chance.

UMBC Scheduler Update

Thanks to the valiant efforts of UMBC's own TimK, the UMBC Scheduler is now out of "alpha stage" and ready for some serious stress-testing by the rest of us. Use this innovative program to easily schedule your classes and let either he or I know if you spot any problems.

Sorry, Senate

I missed the Senate meeting tonight, which really sucks because as Assistant Speaker I don't really get excuses. That being said, it's totally not my fault!

A bit of explanation. The Senate meetings start at 5:30, so months ago when I scheduled this particular doctor's appointment I figured I would have plenty of time to get there, have the appointment, and return. Especially when the offices are only about 20 minutes away, right?

No, it wasn't even traffic. It was the office itself. I was there early for the appointment, signed my name, waited a long time, got the pre-evaluation, waited even longer, and then began to wonder exactly how long this was going to take. When the other doctors and employees started packing up and leaving, I began to get worried. Despite the sign reading "cell phone use prohibited", I finally gave up hope of making the meeting and messaged several folks in SGA hoping that at least one of them would get it and realize where I was. I didn't get seen until a quarter after six. I was literally one of the last patients in the office.

Makes me wonder what happened earlier that day to get him so behind. And for once, I'll actually have to read the minutes for the sole purpose of figuring out what happened. Ouch.

UMBC Scheduler

That's right, the UMBC Scheduler is back by popular demand - or rather, my demands, and TimK's valiant efforts. This little program revolutionizes scheduling your classes as it allows you to visualize how your courses will fit into your day beforehand, not to mention eliminating ones that conflict and showing you which extra classes you can take.

I strongly recommend trying this out - go on over to TimK's site, Halflight Studios, and take the headache out of course registration!

Prove It Advertising

I've been running around like crazy over the past few days trying to help get everything in order for Prove It advertising. And I'm not even the one working the hardest on making all of this happening, so right now I have some serious respect for everybody else involved.

We've been putting together a schedule of advertising that will take us from the launch date through the implementation of the wining idea in April 2008. Thanks to this idea spawning in September rather than May, Brady and Elani have had to spend a lot of the past month or so in meetings with administrators to make sure we have them on board - there would be nothing worse than going through all of this effort only to have it get blocked in the final stretch.

Now that we have a cohort of people behind us, this past week has been all about getting advertising materials ready to infiltrate the campus. Unfortunately, we've had to push the launch date back from this Monday, November 5th, to next Monday, November 12th. It kind of stinks but I think the decision is for the best as it will allow us to release a whole lot of things right from the Official Kick-Off, rather than having them trickle in piecemeal over several weeks. We've also got a kick-ass logo courtesy of JT in SEB, who has worked tirelessly to put up with our demands over the past several days.

However, grassroots advertising of this initiative through online spaces and the tried-and-true method, "talking to friends", has already begun. We'll be trying to encourage that this week by dropping some low-key advertising around campus, so by the time of the official kick-off some people are already expecting something to happen. We're also going to be directing people to the website which, although it's a little blank right now, is going to have the applications, details, FAQs, etc. on it by the 12th.

Stay tuned for more information and as always, if you have questions, feel free to stop by the SGA Offices on the second floor of the commons, in the Student Organizations Space, or email me at com2@umbc.edu.