The TSU Student Government Blog

University Conference Day Reactions

The University Conference today was very interesting in some ways and not so interesting in other ways.  I think that may have to do with the fact that this year’s conference was not quite as student-oriented as last year’s; I felt like students were invited but we were really not reached out too like in the past.  That said, I think there was a lot of good discussion and every session I went to, I was thanked for bringing some student input. 

 The biggest thing I could have heard today was at the session I went to on the Truman Shuffle.  I brought up our idea of creating a “Student Guide to Truman State University” and putting it online, and this was met with a LOT of enthusiasm.  It actually sounded like a resource that faculty and staff would use as well to get questions answered.  Additionally, I feel like this would be a great way for Student Government to become more acquainted with staff offices on this campus.  Someone brought up the idea of making it interactive.  For example, if a question that someone needs answered isn’t posted in the handbook, then having someone investigate it and post the answer would be amazing.  I think this is definately something we could roll on in the coming future.

 The other session where something important happened that I went to was the session on the strength, breadth, and depth of Truman’s academic programs.  One of the big things that came up was that there is no data on the departmental websites for prospective students that show them how cool we are.  For example, no where will you find anything that says, “Truman has consistently placed at least one graduate at Mayo Clinic for the past ten years.”  or “76% of pre-med students from Truman State are accepted to medical school.”  This would greatly enhance our perception of our programs by prospective students.  Additionally, we discussed academic majors.  Do we need a separate actuarial science major?  Or do we simply need a Math major with an actuarial science focus?  Doug Davenport facilitated this session.  He mentioned (read, forcefully ordered) the participants to e-mail him with ideas that came up during this session so they don’t “get lost into the ether” as he put it.  I think this would be a great idea for us to follow up on.

 If other students had experiences or reactions to University Conference Day, it’d be great to post them here so we can compare notes.

~Greg Wisa
Senior Senator