Our Goals

While February's elections have come and gone, the student body still has pressing issues confronting it. The Black Tie Party will continue to work for you, whether in the new SGA administration, the University Council, Parking Services, and everywhere else we can. Here are some of the goals we've established for the coming year.

• Continue to support the ideals of the Parking Manifesto to guarantee student parking rights on campus.
• Improve student access to parking around the Tate Center and SLC
• Demand that housing-priority lots be more clearly marked
• Revise the alternative parking plan for final exams
• Encourage a reduction in the fine for first-time minor parking violations
• Increase the priority of undergraduate commuters, a large population that is often ignored
• Continue to inform students about parking lot hours through our innovative "Parking Card" program
• Improve Student Life
• Encourage the Ramsey Student Center, Student Learning Center, and possibly the dining halls to install webcams so that students can see how crowded high-use areas are
• Create an online database of student-submitted apartment reviews, ratings, and costs to help other students make housing decisions
• Work with Food Services to finally provide long-demanded services like a commuter (one meal a day) meal plan and Sunday night dinner service
• Demand that Campus Transit reinstate the buses they took off the road for Spring 2006; as Transit only expected to save $2 per student for the semester, we should be looking to add rather than subtract services
• Reform and simplify the process for obtaining student tickets for football, and increase the number of ticketing windows available at Coliseum events
• Oppose Athens-Clarke County's moratorium on fraternity and sorority house construction, and continue to fight for student rights with the ACC Commission
• Improved Academic Experience
• Make mid-term and semester-end course evaluations available online
• Work with academic departments to put syllabi for every course online, in an easy-to-find place, before pre-registration ends -- making Drop/Add more useful and less stressful
• Expand and extend The Key to cover multiple years and include more features and tools (possibly including links to course evaluations and syllabi)
• Don’t Forget the Split. Extend Drop/Add back to six days.
• Work to extend OASIS hours with the goal of extending the system to 24 hours
• Urge the SGA Senate to implement a Student Bill of Rights
• Work with SGA's new SPIA Reform Subcommittee to improve availability for Permission of Department and Permission of Major classes
• Work within the new administration for long-needed SGA reforms
• Help SGA's Open Records Subcommittee in their initiatives to put SGA records online, as well as continuing to improve the Open Door with records from Student Activities and other campus agencies
• Discuss with SGA's new Finance Committee ways to reform the method in which Student Government allocates its funds and work towards the eventual establishment of a student board that would administer the Student Activites Fee
• Continue to promote the Constitutional Reform Subcommittee's revision of the Student Government Constituion so that the student body as a whole is effectively represented
• Level the playing field by working with the new Attorney General to reform the elections process so that more students have the opportunity and information to run
• Encourage students to attend Senate meetings and voice their concerns (Thanks to the new administration, Senate has now finally moved back to the SLC!)

These are our goals as currently planned. Every member of the Black Tie Party, and many others in the community, have had the chance to have input into these ideas, and we're pretty excited about some of the things we hope to bring the student body. Even so, there's bound to be things we've overlooked. If you have any suggestions, no matter how "out there" they may seem, that could improve the student experience at UGA, please e-mail us at SuggestionBox@ugablacktieparty.com. Don't be surprised to see your ideas brought to the table in the future!