Btown ticket takes IUSA office today

Today begins Btown’s reign as IU Student Association’s executive administration.

Btown is in the stages of planning what they wish to accomplish during their time in office with some help from their predecessor, the Big Red administration.

Btown plans to continue with a few of Big Red’s initiatives, such as fall break and tax-free textbooks.

However, the Btown ticket will not push for a student section in Assembly Hall.

After meeting with Athletic Director Fred Glass, members of the Btown ticket realized IU already has 7,500 student seats in Assembly Hall, and this number “rivals other Big Ten schools,” said junior Jack McCarthy, IUSA vice president.

Senior Dan Sloat, former IUSA vice president, said when men’s basketball coach Tom Crean spoke at the Beta Theta Pi house, he seemed enthusiastic about basketball fans. He said this makes it time to push for a student section, but Btown does not feel the same.

Btown plans on rewarding IU’s biggest sports fans with better seating rather than changing the structure of seating, McCarthy said.

The new executives met with their predecessors to learn about their position, and the Big Red ticket gave Btown a lot of advice.

McCarthy said the best advice Btown received is to make sure students know what they are working on and to have a strong presence on campus.

With the state of the economy, there will be inevitable limitations to what the current administration can do.

“With the down economy, resources are limited, but are not all bad,” Sloat said. “It puts people in the position to be innovative and effective with the resources they do have.”

Btown has already begun thinking ahead about what it can do to strengthen its financial situation.

“We are finding creative ways to maximize funds,” said junior Peter SerVaas, IUSA president.

Within its budget, the Btown ticket cut $5,000 worth of phones in the IUSA office, McCarthy said. The only phone will be for the secretary.

The tax-free textbook holiday initiative will have a better chance of passing the Indiana State Senate during a better financial time, SerVaas said.

Reflecting on their administration, former IUSA President Luke Fields said Big Red receives a grade in the B+ to A- range.

“I think for the circumstances we took office, we have made great strides to start turning IUSA around and restoring confidence in student government,” Fields said. “We did not get all of our platform issues accomplished, but we did great work in advancing them. We are getting to the point where we can hand the baton off to (Btown), and I couldn’t be happier about it.”

Fields said the Btown administration should begin work as soon as possible.

“Take advantage of the remaining semester,” Fields said. “I would encourage them to start meeting with administrators now and understand what platform issues they need to tackle and how they are going to do it.”