Interim President Marisa Kelly attended and spoke at the Student Government Association meeting Thursday on diversity and the five-year strategic plan that will reach the end of it course at the end of the academic year. On the topic of diversity, she spoke about the diversity task force that was implemented last year by former president Margaret McKenna.
The diversity task force is a group of students and faculty whose main goal is to make the school more inclusive and help the Suffolk University community work well in diverse environments. “It (the diversity task force) did some great work last year,” said Kelly, “I decided to have the task force continue, there’s a lot we need to do to be the campus we want to be. The task force is a starting point for our on-going work in this area (diversity).”
There will be a survey given to the student body and the staff so they may voice their opinion on diversity here at Suffolk.
“We can’t address the issues if we don’t hear from the students,” said Kelly.
The next topic she wanted to address was the five-year strategic plan. She said in the meeting that the major success that came out of the plan in the past year was placing the Bursar’s Office, and Financial Aid Office on the same floor; 6th floor of 73 Tremont.
The specifics of the five-year plan can be read on the Suffolk website.
Kelly addressed what is next now that this plan has reached its end. She spoke about possibly creating a two-year plan, and to decide what issues to take on she said, “I have sent a survey to faculty and staff to find out what we need to focus on this time around.”
President Kelly also asked SGA for help in this aspect. She wants the student body to have input, but she knows that many students will not be interested. She is hoping that SGA could come up with a good way to present this survey to students.
Freshman Yasir Batalvi voiced concern that a new permanent president in the next couple years may change the plan that is being set up now.
“There should be the ability to have some continuity,” Kelly said back in the meeting. She said that the new president will have to look at the past of Suffolk, so that they may have a good view of where the university was and where it is now and how it needs to improve. There was also a question of implementation but Kelly simply said, “We have a huge amount of stability across the university.”
There was another question raised about what else the five-year Strategic Plan accomplished. Kelly said that Suffolk “revamped the curriculum,” and began advancing the academic experiences.
For Kelly, some of the opportunities that she said that she wants to expand is the Gateway Program, which is a program that allows students to travel to the Madrid campus for a week in order to see if they would like to study there for a semester. Kelly said in the meeting that she will be going to Madrid this spring with a group.
Kelly was also questioned about students who are not as involved in the schools as others and how they can become more aware of what is going on in the university. Kelly said that she wants those students to reach out to her and explained that her door will remain open to students who have any questions.
