With the Student Government Association elections coming up, politically active students have gotten ready to take seats in the campus government organizations.
When the elections take place from April 5 through 7, it will have an entrance of student political groups, which have their own goals and ideas to bring to SGA.
One of those organizations is the Clause and Stripe party, which recently formed and had its first meeting this past Monday.
The party has a diverse range of members, according to party member Laura Fowler, who is also running for an SGA senate seat.
Fowler, a junior political science major, said Clause and Stripes originally started looking for students with similar affiliations and beliefs, but eventually ended up diversifying.
The Clause and Stripes have members involved with the Student Activities Council, various fraternities and the college republicans, of whom Fowler said she is also a member.
One purpose of Clause and Stripes is to work to improve issues concerning students and campus life, said party chairman Brandon Gravley.
Gravley, a junior political science major, said such issues include facility availability hours, student Web Pages, homecoming game involvements, academic advising, visiting hours and other campus conveniences.
One of the facility related issues Clause and Stripes wants to address is the library availability hours.
"We believe it should be 24 hours," Gravley said.
Gravley said it should be simple to keep a 24-hour library if they just shut down the other facilities that are not being used in the late hours.
Gravley said Clause and Stripes also brought in an idea for a new student homepage.
"We'd like to start a new student homepage that will be more geared towards students and faculty," Gravley said.
Gravley said Clause and Stripes is just aiming for a student Web site that would hold more information than The University's homepage.
Gravley said Georgetown's student homepage had email sign-ons, events listings and newspaper listings displayed on the opening page.Clause and Stripes wanted to model The University's student homepage after one similar to Georgetown's, Gravley said.
Clause and Stripes wanted to improve the homecoming game attendance as well as the diversity of the people who attend the game.
"The football homecoming is not very diverse," Gravley said. "It's mainly white fraternities and sororities, and that's just not right."
Clause and Stripes wanted to include more of the black fraternities to add more diversity at the homecoming games.
"We just want to encourage people to go out and meet someone different," Gravley said.
After speaking to numerous people at orientation, Gravley said he noticed that advising could set up certain people for failure.
"Advising is horrible at best," Gravley said.
Gravley said Clause and Stripes wanted to design a system that would help both students and advisors make graduation time shorter and add ease in class selection.
"The average graduation time is five years and we wanted to decrease that," Gravley said.
Clause and Stripes also wanted to increase or banish student visitation hours in the dorms, Gravley said.
"No one wants 24-hour visitation everywhere, just in certain halls," Gravley said. "Just let people live."
Gravley, who is also a resident advisor, said students need more freedom.
"We have a safe campus in an area that is not safe," Gravley said. "Retention and graduation will be better by extending or abolishing visiting hours."
Gravley said Clause and Stripes also wanted to help make credit and debit cards available for use in the Tiger Den, which became a reality last Friday.
Along with the many issues that Clause and Stripes hoped to address was the passage of certain bills, Gravley said.
One of those bills concerned the adoption of a creed, which will be discussed in the group's meeting on Thursday.
"We just want to make The University a better place," Gravley said.Chuck Grimes, junior political science major and senatorial candidate for SGA, said it has not been common for SGA parties, such as Clause and Stripes, to form.
"The framework was there, but it has never been used," Grimes said. "I think having SGA parties is a good idea."
Grimes said the parties give people a chance to work on issues before the elections and combine students with the same concerns about the campus.
"As far as a party, it's an excellent way to get things done on campus," said club vice-chairman Omari Whyte.
Whyte, a junior marketing major, is going to be Gravley's running mate for SGA's positions of president and vice-president.
Although neither has decided who would run for which position yet, they feel they have an excellent chance, Whyte said.
"I'm really excited," Fowler said.
