Questions, Comments, Concerns?

On November 19th, the Student Government Association hosted their semester Mack Meeting where students could come and state their views about the college to President Chris Hopey.

As everyone began to file into the room, they were greeted by Max Allen in his pizza costume.  This Mack Meeting had a new theme this year, Pizza with the President, in hopes to attract new students with the lure of free pizza once one walked into the door.  This tactic seemed to be successful as over a hundred students were in attendance along with many teachers and deans of the college.  Once President Hopey entered Cascia Hall, the official meeting began and questions from the audience began to fly out at him.

Many topics of concern were covered throughout this meeting.  One of the main concerns from the students was the overcrowding in Sparkys.  With the expansion of the college, the dining hall has become a tight squeeze to fit all the students in when they choose to eat.  President Hopey shared with us his plans to take the first floor of O’Brien and create that into a second dining area with students can go and enjoy their meals. He plans for this to happen in the next couple of years.  

A second major concern for the students was the issue of parking.  Many feel that we need to expand our parking lots in order to allow more students to park their cars on campus.  President Hopey presented the dilemma that the best option for parking would be to build garages in which students could park their cars in.  However, this would be extremely expensive, resulting in the cost of parking spots going up to almost $2,000.  No one would want to pay such high prices just so they could park their cars.  In conclusion to this problem, he feels that the money that would be used for more parking could be put into a better use such as improving classrooms, programs, and playing fields.  He does not want to eliminate green space either, which would be a result to more parking.

A third question brought up was asked by a student commuter, “Will Merrimack bring back a commuter lounge where commuters can go and hang out?”  President Hopey exclaimed the project that the school has been planning for, which is a commuters lounge in the first floor of Deegan West.  Currently, this is where Hamel Health is residing until the new building gets put in near the Saint Thomas apartments.  Once Hamel Health moves during this winter break, the commuter lounge will be produced and will be ready once the students come back for spring semester of this year.  President Hopey showed us pictures of the floor plan which included a small cooking area, many seating options, a fire place, and televisions on various walls for students to go to and just relax in between classes.

A fourth issue was brought up about the smoking outside of dorm buildings.  Students living on the first floor of the different buildings get drafts of cigarette smoke into their rooms through the windows.  This can be a huge annoyance, especially to the many non-smokers on campus.  Currently, the rule stands that one must be fifty feet away from any building when smoking, but this rule is not usually enforced.  President Hopey proposed the solution of giving smokers designated areas to smoke, leaving the rest of the campus smoke-free.

A fifth and final concern that was given to Hopey was the fact that when a student takes three classes, the price is the same as if they were taking four, but if they take five classes, then the fee goes up.  This does not seem right because if the fee goes up when taking five classes, shouldn’t the fee go down if one is only taking three classes instead of the usual four?  President Hopey expressed his own concern with this saying that he hopes to make it so a student can take up to six courses for the price of just four.  He believes that as a liberal arts school, students should be able to take more classes than the normal four for the same amount of money.  He wants to see students take as many classes as possible, and he does not want money to be the reason why a student would not.  If a student only takes three classes, he said he would look into this issue that students should not have to pay the same price as four classes, if they are taking less.

The meeting lasted for about ninety minutes, with President Hopey answering every question that was thrown at him.  Student Government Association’s hard work truly paid off as the Mack Meeting was a huge success.