GW students can voice concerns about issues from quality of life to tuition expense during a town hall meeting with members of the University’s Board of Trustees Wednesday – two days before the Board votes on next year’s tuition cost.
“I want this town hall meeting to serve as an opportunity for the Board to talk to students directly,” said Kuyomars “Q” Golparvar, president of the Student Association, which organized the meeting.
The Board of Trustees, which meets three times a year in addition to a summer retreat, will hold its first meeting of the year Friday.
The meeting agenda includes a vote on the cost of tuition for the upcoming academic year.
The SA will give each Board member a copy of the town hall meeting’s minutes, so they will have a tangible source of student feedback, Golparvar said.
“(The Board) will take the students’ input and discuss it with the administration,” Golparvar said.
Golparvar stressed the importance of reaching out to all members of the University community, since the Board’s decisions also direct GW’s graduate schools, the GW Law School and the School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
The town hall, scheduled for Wednesday at 9 p.m. in the Marvin Center Ballroom, has been heavily advertised across campus with posters, e-mail announcements and palmcards in residence hall mailboxes, Golparvar said.
In addition to tuition, technology, academics, facilities and other aspects of student life will be discussed.
“It’s important to get students’ viewpoints on quality-of-life issues,” Golparvar said.
Board members slated to attend the town hall meeting mostly sit on the Board’s Student Affairs Committee. They include the committee’s chair Edward (Skip) W. Gnehm, former SA President Al Park and John Benison.In November, the SA sponsored a town hall meeting that drew more than 400 students to discuss Commencement. The decision to hold 1998 Commencement on the Ellipse is attributed to the unusually large student outcry over the issue, Golparvar said.
“Thanks to the students who came out to the Commencement town hall meeting, we have Commencement on the Ellipse,” he said. “If students come out to this meeting, who knows what’ll happen,” Golparvar said.
