The academic school year has wrapped up, but you wouldn’t know it in the Student Congress office.

The summer always means that a new administration has taken over, which means a new executive board and legislature that is busy working for you, the students of Oakland University.

Before we tell you about all of the exciting initiatives we have going on right now, we feel it is important to express our appreciation in being elected into the positions of president and vice president of the student body.

We thank you for your support and votes, and we are honored to be serving you.

Regardless of whether or not you voted, or if you voted for a different ticket, we want you to know that your issues are important to us, that our doors are always open, and that we are continuously striving for improvement.

Immediately after being elected, our first priority was to hire an extremely qualified executive board. As president and vice president, our goal is to continuously be seeking out ways to improve your quality of life at OU.

While every member of OUSC holds this overall general goal, each executive board member serves a very specific purpose in serving the students. We have a Legislative Affairs Director, Multicultural Affairs Director, Student Services Director, Administrative Assistant, Public Relations Agent, Financial Affairs Director, Student Program Board Chair, and Student Activities Funding Board Chair (Editor’s note: turn to page 14 for full e-board profiles). Each of these positions will be working about 10 hours per week in the summer months and then 20 to 25 hours in the fall and winter semesters.

We will be doing events during the school year, in which you have the opportunity to meet them and become familiar with their positions. As always, we encourage you to come on down to the OUSC office at 62 Oakland Center and meet us and check out what we’re working on.

The majority of these positions are also required to have a committee, so if this is something that interests you, feel free to stop by and find out more information about what each specific committee is responsible for.

When we were in the beginning stages of working on a platform to run for office, we knew that we had to make realistic goals that could be accomplished in a short period of time and that the initiatives had to be desirable to the students. One of our goals that we received a large amount of feedback on was expanding the outdoor life at OU.

This has become our main priority in the summer months, simply because it is the best time for construction, and we want students to enjoy these types of things while the weather and campus are the most beautiful.

Along with our Student Services Director, Brett McIsaac, the two of us have been working closely with the administration to draw up a proposal that will enhance the outdoor life on campus, meaning more picnic tables, benches, and, yes, hammocks. Plans have been going very smoothly to get this completed in the summer months, and we are confident that it won’t be too long before you have more options for outdoor seating — and napping — at OU.

Another initiative that we are excited to kick off in the Fall is the new route that the Bear Bus, OU’s shuttle service, will be taking around campus in order to assist with parking congestion.

We have partnered with the Housing Department, and with the support of the administration, we are excited that this is becoming a reality and that it will in fact help Oakland students when they are having difficulty finding a parking spot near the building they are traveling to.

We will be having a Welcome Week kickoff party in order to promote this and let students know about the details of how this service will work.

Of course we are placing a strong emphasis on working with OU’s incoming freshman class. OUSC has a longstanding relationship with the Office of Orientation and New Student Programs, and we are excited to have the opportunity to make our name known to OU’s newest Grizzlies.

We want students to know from the very beginning of their college career what OUSC is, what we do, and how to get involved. We will have representatives of OUSC at all one-day and overnight orientations, which will hopefully encourage students to get involved from the very beginning of the Oakland experience.

As we have stated before, we want to hear from you and we want to do whatever we can to help you.

Our next general body meeting will take place on Monday, May 24 at 4:30 p.m. in the Oakland Center. We encourage you to come out, whether it be to become a legislator — we still have a few open spots — to voice a concern, or simply to see what we’re working on, we would love to have you.

Please feel free to contact Brandon at [email protected] or Amy at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you.

Editor’s note: Gustafson and Ring will be writing a similar column on a regular basis to keep students updated on their actions in office. For more information on OUSC, visit www.oakland.edu/ousc.