| NEWS
| SEPTEMBER 27, 2005
Student Life
Students topic of forum
Online discussion gives university
community chance to address issues.
By Megan
Magaña
The Shorthorn Staff
The first MavsChat of the fall semester will take place at 3 p.m.
today with two new campus leaders.
Students can log on to http://www.uta.edu/mavschat
to discuss student life with Frank Lamas, vice president for Student
Affairs, and Student Congress President Josh Sawyer. Dr. Lamas has
been with the university since Aug. 1, and Sawyer became president
in the spring. They both said they encourage student participation,
feedback and discussion.
“It’s an opportunity for students to reach out to the
two of us and ask any questions regarding UTA,” Lamas said.
He said he works for the students as their voice, and that a sign
of a good administrator is listening to input.
“If you can have a collective wisdom of various individuals,
it can only make for better decisions because you fully understand
an issue,” he said.
Lamas said the focus of the chat will be student life and describes
himself as a person of action who likes to move things forward and
work for the students.
“I like to say I maintain an open-door policy,” he said.
Lamas said that although he is able to speak with individual students,
clubs and organizations to address issues, he advocates the MavsChat
to reach out to students.
“These types of programs can only make us a stronger community,”
he said.
He said he is happy to be participating with Sawyer and SC.
“I think it shows the wonderful partnership we have between
Student Affairs and the president of Student Congress,” he
said.
Sawyer said the chat gives students an opportunity to talk, no matter
where they physically are.
“Hopefully, we’ll get ideas from students to engage
students more and bring new ideas to campus,” he said.
Danny Woodward, communication assistant for the Office of the President,
said he expects a good representation of students.
“This is such a unique thing UTA does,” he said. “It
really is the best way for students to correspond with administrators.”
He said that due to the volume of questions and the speed of responses,
not all questions may be answered within the allowed time frame.
However, according to Cornelius Smith, Office of Information Technology
software engineer, questions will be answered after the session
and archived. He said he developed the technical aspect of the MavsChat
and said it has gone well in the past.
“We’re looking for positive feedback for technology
on campus,” he said.
Aerospace engineering junior Vinod Madavaraj said he would view
the site and participate only if a topic of interest to him came
up.
“I come to school, to classes and participate in what organizations
I can,” he said.
Lynn Handley, vice president for communication, said she adapted
the chat idea from her former job at TXU Energy. She said students
can remain anonymous and post comments and questions related to
campus life, events and activities.
“It’s a time-efficient way for us to get info out to
everybody,” she said.
|
CONNECT
1. Log on to www.uta.edu/mavschat
Tuesday at 3 p.m.
2. Choose a screen name that is not your
real name but something that may include your initials,
major, organization, etc.
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| Frank
Lamas, vice president for Student Affairs |
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| Josh
Sawyer, Student Congress president |
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