WCSA discusses where to spend rollover funds

WCSA crest. Photo courtesy of the owu website.
WCSA crest. Photo courtesy of the owu website.

Elections have closed for all positions on the Wesleyan Council of Student Affairs (WCSA) except treasurer, and applications are still being accepted.

Senior Jerry Lherisson, president of WCSA, began the Nov. 16 meeting by offering his congratulations to the new position holders.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys can do,” Lherisson said.

The next president will be Jessica Choate, the vice president will be Sam Schurer and the secretary will be Caroline Anderson, all juniors.

Freshmen Nick Melvin and Caroline Hamlin have been elected as the class of 2019 representatives, sophomores Kaden Thompson and Mallory Griffith as the class of 2018 representatives and juniors Andrew Stock and Jo Meyer as the class of 2017 representatives.

Elections for the full senate are this Friday.

Senior Emma Drongowski, vice president of WCSA, encouraged senators to keep working hard as winter break approaches.

“We still have three weeks in our semester and we still have time to do good work here,” Drongowski said.

The next order of business was to discuss how rollover funds would be spent.

“The funds come from pots of money that weren’t used at the end of the semester or events that were cancelled,” Drongowski said.

The executive members would like the funds to go toward three areas: safety, sustainability and residential affairs.

“We really want to spend this on things that will impact the students in the best way possible,” Drongowski said.

Safety items include adding a crosswalk on Oak Hill Avenue in the area between Welch and Smith and the “Let There Be Lights” project, which aims to add lights to dimly lit areas on campus.

Sustainability items include adding a community garden near Stuyvesant Hall and developing post-consumer composting.

Residential affairs had the most items, and these include replacing the carpet and seating in the Hamilton-Williams atrium, getting wireless printing in the Welch and Hayes Hall computer labs and purchasing swipe cards to track campus involvement and attendance.

Drongowski said all of these ideas were viable, but there was no guarantee every single idea would be accomplished.

The exact amount of rollover funds won’t be known until the end of the semester, but Drongowski said it will be “a substantial amount of money.”