Student Government (SG) President Pete Maki’s remarks at this year’s State of the University speech focused on the accomplishments of the past year as well as the shortfalls, which he prefaced by relating a few words of advice given to him by last year’s SG president, namely to get everything done as soon as he could.
“I took his advice and was very busy this summer with Student Government,” said Maki.
He continued by expressing how proud he was of all that his executive board accomplished over the past year, citing the shuttles to the beach that were recently made available to students.
“We had a rocky start with rain and hurricanes ruining the events leading up to [the introduction of the service],” Maki said. He added that he hopes the service will become so institutionalized that it will continue indefinitely.
Maki also hit upon several other accomplishments that he was pleased to see come to fruition.
“We were able to extend the library hours to 2 a.m.-a whole extra hour of study time,” he said.
Maki also said that having the library open for 24 hours a day is still a goal, but that it was up to the students to prove that there is a need for such a measure.
“It is up to our students at this point to prove this need by taking advantage of this extra time by utilizing the library services,” he said.
According to Maki, other successes include additional routes for shuttles service, free laundry in the dorms, free business cards for student from the Toppel Career Center, an increase in SG publicity and barbeque grills around campus, with grilling supplies available in the C-Store.
Besides these, Maki was clear in expressing three platforms goals that his administration was able to begin but could not come about for a variety of reasons.
One of these is offering wireless or networking printing on-campus. According to Maki, this proposal did not materialize due to contractual issues with the current printer company.
“I expect to see this worthy project being done within the year,” he said.
Making ‘Cane Cards a payment option for venues off-campus was the second incomplete goal that Maki discussed. He also said that the University saw the need as well but pointed to security issues as the chief obstacle to this plan, a conclusion he said he fully agreed with.
The final aim was offering free towels in the Wellness Center, which Maki admitted he was disappointed with.
“It [wasn’t] due to a lack of will or ingenuity,” he said. “But after going through all the numbers.they simply don’t add up in our favor.” Maki said the objective was partially achieved through a give-away more than 2,000 towels.
Greg Linch can be reached at g.linch@umiami.edu.