IUSA prepared to work over summer

The IU Student Association executives have spent their first month in office accomplishing "as much as possible" before fall. \n"The main goal of our first month was to establish our credibility," said Student Body Vice President Grant McFann. "I think we did a very good job of establishing that credibility."\nThe executives said their top priorities are establishing a book drop-off at the library, establishing their Tier One Academic Initiative to improve the academic lives of IU students, re-organizing the Midnight Special safety shuttle, instating an online book exchange and improving the blue safety lights on campus.\nThey have laid groundwork and made contacts in some of these areas to prepare to enact their platform. Over the past month, the executives met with approximately 20 upper level administrators on the Bloomington campus and presented them with an IUSA folder summarizing their initiatives.\nCasey Cox, president of IUSA, said he hopes to see a book drop-off box put in during the first week of the fall semester. The executives said they plan to lobby the library and give them a proposal detailing pros and cons of the book drop-off, costs, etc. Cox said he has contacted Eric Bartheld, the associate director of External Relations and Development at the Main Library, about IUSA's plans.\nBartheld said he looks forward to communicating further with IUSA executives. \n"We'd like to look into options to make the library more accessible to students," he said.\nIn order to further their Tier One Academic Initiative, McFann said that the executives have spoken with Writing Tutorial Services, the State Commissioner for Higher Education and Chancellor Sharon Brehm, as well as others. \nCox said that IUSA would like to boost IU's national ranking and improve students' academic experiences with their Tier One Academic Initiative by making academic resources more readily available to students, making online grading more common and ensuring the efficiency of the $1,000 "commitment to excellence" fee charged to freshmen. \n"We want to make sure that the fee be spent effectively in order to tangibly benefit the students," Cox said.\nIUSA said it will lobby deans of different schools on campus to promote making grades available online with services such as Oncourse. \nCox and McFann said they would like to see changes made to the Midnight Special safety shuttle. They said they hope to expand its current routes to include areas east of campus, such as the University Commons, or add another route to the current North and South routes. McFann said that they would like to use buses instead of shuttles in order to service more students. Cox and McFann said they would also like to discuss ensuring that the shuttles stop every 15 minutes, as scheduled, and at the correct stops. \nCox said he hopes this initiative will increase safety on campus.\nCox said that he also hopes to reach a decision about an online book exchange by August. He described the idea for the exchange as "an E-bay for books." The IUSA executives said that they would like to see this in place by August for fall book buying. This service is currently popular at the University of Michigan, Cox said. \nFinally, IUSA said it would also like to ensure that the blue safety lights placed at various locations around campus are all functioning properly. \n"They have a bad reputation for not working," Cox said. \nAll in all, the IUSA executives said they feel they are right on track to fulfill their platform objectives and will continue to work over the summer months.