Maggie Guzman has big plans.
In May she will take over as student body president, a position currently held by Ben Taylor.
Besides establishing a cabinet, appointing committee members, improving advising and financial aid services for students, and performing the normal daily duties of the student body president, Guzman wants to pursue an ambitious sustainibility project that would retro-fit campus buildings to be more energy efficient.
Oh yeah – she’s also a double major in English and political science, and a Phi Mu sister.
But one of the many challenges she will face when she takes office is the persistently low student involvement that has plagued USM’s student government, particularly on the Portland campus. During the last election, only 5% of USM undergraduates voted. She also says that few students express their concerns to the student senate and president.
“That definitely is a challenge because we do have a commuter campus. A lot of people don’t have as much of a connection with the university as they would at Orono,” she said.
Guzman thinks this can be changed through the student body president’s active engagement in improving the services that matter most to USM students, like advising.
“These [faculty] advisors don’t always know what they’re talking about, which creates confusion with students; they don’t always know what their requirements are to graduate,” she said.
Guzman wants to establish training in Mainestreet for faculty advisors, as well as making sure that advisors know about all the programs available to students, like study abroad.
She also wants to work on financial aid services, which can seem like an assembly line to some students, she says.
“They look at your transcript, and they’re like ‘boom-boom-boom-boom, okay next student,'” Guzman said of some students’ experiences with the financial aid staff.
“It’s like they’re trying to just get you out so that the next student can come in, instead of really working on your case to make sure that you get the most money possible. A lot of students don’t get that attention,” she said.
Much of the problem with the financial aid department can be boiled down to one fundamental problem: USM doesn’t have the money to hire additional staff.
“The adminstration wants students to succeed at USM, the difficulty is that we don’t have the budget to have all these things we want to have. But there are things we can do as students to improve these services,” she said.
Guzman wants to increase the visibility of the student body president and improve communication between administrators, faculty and students.
“One thing that has been a big issue in this semester and last semester is that there hasn’t been a lot of communication between the Student Body President and the Student Government, which is a big problem,” she said.
Guzman plans to address this, by appointing cabinet members to assist in day-to-day operations and assigning committee members to each of the 15 departments the president oversees, effectively re-asserting the vitality of the position of student body president.
Guzman also plans to create a sustainability coalition; an ambitious project that would combine all the separate student groups working on environmental causes at USM.
“We have a lot of students who are very energy-conscious at this campus, who are lucky to be in Maine, a state that’s at the forefront of the energy movement,” she said.
Installing solar panels, building a windmill in Gorham, and fixing leaks in campus buildings is a less expensive, she says. Some solar firms, like SunEdison, will perform the necessary repairs and improvements for no up front cost. Guzman has been talking with state representative Dave Marshall about the implications of the university signing a purchase agreement with these firms, which is a sort of loan whose repayment is calculated based on the amount of money the school would save in energy costs.
“I think it’s important for a campus to be marketable,” she said. USM being a leader in the green movement could potentially achieve that, she says.
She hopes to have a draft of the plan in the hands of USM President Selma Botman by the end of next semester.
The change Guzman wants to enact ultimately depends on the students of USM getting involved. This has been a consistent problem on the Portland campus, where she says “it’s almost as if all students are commuter students.” Despite this hurdle, she remains confident about the future.
“That is definitely an issue that we have been trying to work on,” she said. “This campus is not a lost cause.”
If you have any questions or concerns for newly elected student body president Maggie Guzman, email her at [email protected]