Miloshova, Evgenia: President

If I were president of SAU I would improve the living conditions in some of the dormitories. If I had the financial resources I would start with reconstructing the halls. It would be more pragmatic and convenient if each room wherever had its own bathroom. In the case where students from five or six different rooms use the same bathroom, they have no other option but wait in line to take a shower. Besides, sometimes hot water is not available. I have heard that in most of the residence halls the heaters are not on until after some particular time, which is also not ideal because otherwise whenever you feel cold you could just turn it on. As far as living in the halls is concerned these are the things I would work on toward improvement.

      

Another thing that I would do if I were the president of SAU is propose changes to the general education requirements at SAU. General education courses are meant to prepare students academically, and to give a broad range of knowledge that would help them in their everyday experiences. Not all courses of the core curriculum necessarily fulfill the purpose of general education: providing a well – rounded education. Two courses that, in my opinion, are redundant and too specifically oriented are University Chemistry and University Physics. These classes are in-depth studies of physics and chemistry that venture into fairly advanced areas of their respective fields. In contrast to these two, College Chemistry and College Physics provide a general understanding of the two sciences that might be helpful to students of all majors rather than just science majors. Because the courses are not focused on circumscribed areas, they contribute to students’ comprehensive understanding of many other issues. However, unless a student is planning on a science-based major, he or she will have no use for the knowledge of laboratory qualitative and quantitative analyses or stoichiometry or any number of other things taught in these classes. This is why I think University Chemistry and University Physics should be removed from the general education requirements.

      

The last thing I would address being the president of SAU regarding academics is the addition of the study of Latin. Although it is considered a dead language Latin is the foundation of many modern languages and having a good knowledge of it is highly beneficial.