Thanks for your support everyone!

It’s been a long and hard journey to get to this point, but we wanted to extend our utmost thanks to everyone for supporting our campaign. We didn’t win, but we congratulate Zack and Claire for a great campaign and look forward to working with them next year!

It’s been a heckuva ride,
-Nicole Kukuruda and Ravi Udeshi
Student Senators

Facebook’s Dirty Little Secret

Hey everyone,

We’ve already committed to being the most open, honest, and transparent student government in this school’s history. We’ve emphasized the importance of direct and constant communication with the student body — and we’ve proven it in this campaign by:

• setting up this website (http://www.nicoleandravi.com),
• creating an extensive and comprehensive platform (http://www.nicoleandravi.com/platform/),
• updating a campaign blog that you can interact with us on (http://www.nicoleandravi.com/blog/),
• filming campaign videos (http://www.nicoleandravi.com/media/),
• providing a campaign email address (ideas@nicoleandravi.com), and even…
• creating a campaign phone number that you can call and leave us a message on (703-942-9850).

But we’re also on top of that final frontier, the one location you can almost always inevitably find college students visiting while they procrastinate or just want to find out what their friends are up to…

Facebook.

What’s Facebook’s dirty little secret, you ask? As easy as Mark Zuckerberg has made it to use, it’s still difficult to connect with people in any one way on Facebook. People aren’t always friends with Student Government members, don’t get event notices, ignore group invitations, or just plain never find out what Student Government is doing. We want to change that. We’re communicating with people on Facebook in 4 distinct ways:

1. Facebook Group
   
   We’ve created a great Facebook group with lots of information about us, our campaign, our platform, and those people who are helping us turn our vision for Mason into reality. If you haven’t already, click here to join our group and get updates from the campaign trail.
2. Facebook Profile Pictures
   
   The fact of the matter is you just can’t help but to check what your friends’ new profile pictures are. And if that’s the only way to reach out to some people, so be it. We’ve created a great Facebook profile picture for people to use during the campaign to show their support for us, and we’ll use similar images in the future to advertise Student Government events and functions. If you haven’t already, go ahead and change your profile picture to this image!
3. Facebook Ads


Maybe you don’t visit Facebook groups and don’t like to see people’s new profile pictures…but if you’re on Facebook, you can’t ignore the ads. By advertising to the 14,000 or so George Mason students on Facebook, you can get information out about Student Government in a cost-effective manner on a site that 50% of college students visit daily. Just today, we’re already at more than 10,000 views — think about if Student Government advertised for events, meetings, or even open positions this way. We’re looking forward to taking advantage of everything Facebook has to offer to get information out next year, including their most recent development…

4. Our Very Own Facebook App

Picture coming soon!
That’s right. I’m proud to announce that, later this evening, we’re going to be launching this campaign’s first official Facebook application. When we said we were ready to reach out to you in every way possible, we meant it. Now we’re no experts at this, so it’s still a pretty simple app — but we’re laying the groundwork now for a great way to communicate with students next year. Love them or hate them, Facebook Apps one of the best ways to spread information out in an interactive manner on the site you visit the most — and we promise there will never be any zombies, werewolves, pirates, or ninjas involved. More information will be added here as soon as it launches!

So that’s Facebook in a nutshell for you. We’re continuing to use a couple things Student Government has used in the past — and utilizing a few brand new ones to take advantage of everything that Facebook has to offer. No matter what the medium, however, we’re interested in getting our message out to you. If you know of any other ways we can reach out to the student body, on Facebook or otherwise, we’d love to know — please get in touch with us and let us know your ideas.

Thanks so much for your continued support and don’t forget to join us on Facebook — in whatever way you want!

-Ravi Udeshi
Candidate for Student Body Vice President

Are You Ready for the Tuition Hikes?

Hey everyone,

Here’s a sneak peek at an editorial I wrote for the Broadside about the huge tuition hikes Mason students will be facing in the coming years. Look for it in the April 7th issue!

-Nicole Kukuruda
Candidate for Student Body President

Mason Students are Unrepresented as Victims of Fees
With Tuition on the Rise, How is Mason Truly Serving Its Students?

Seventy-seven percent. It is a big scary number. Let’s not lie, if you were getting 77% off all of your purchases at the mall, you’d be buying like crazy! But what if you found out that tuition is said to go up 77% in the next five years? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you might want to consider transferring.

The Board of Visitors met on March 19th, 2008 and discussed the tuition rates for the upcoming year. Although a final decision will not be made until the May 9th meeting, both Provost Stearns and Senior Vice President Scherrens seemed to think that tuition would be increasing for the fall semester by 10%. According to Student Representative for the Board of Visitors Bryan Painter, tuition is projected to increase 77% by 2013. The funniest thing about the tuition increase is the fact that no students actually sit on the Finance and Resource Development Committee that decides things like tuition, and room and board fees.

It seems to me that this decision is unnecessary and unacceptable. Most college students understand that tuition increases slightly every year. We all get stuck with a good 5%, and we just smile and keep registering for classes. I feel, however, there is a distinct difference between the norm, and the proposed 10% increase. For many students, this will become the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Imagine coming in as a freshman next year. In your four year college term, assuming you get out in four years, tuition will increase 67%. For many students, that means living off campus to cut costs to cover the tuition hikes. It also means perhaps not purchasing books for classes or maybe just not eating. My big hang up with this whole process is that the school just assumes students will take the tuition hike and keep paying. They assume they can just do what they think. They think they need to increase research facilities and construct a hotel conference center, and students won’t do anything. But the truth is that they won’t.

The students won’t fight against it; the students will do what they do with everything else that happens at Mason. They’ll complain to their friends, mumble about it as they stand in line to pay their tuition payment, and that will be the end. It seems that at some point students should be more appreciative of the fact that they have Student Government to advocate for them, as so few students will do it themselves.

The finance committee of the 28th Student Senate, in conjunction with the legislative and government counterparts in the executive branch of student government, and the student-run lobbying group Virginia21, are working to fight the tuition hikes and talk with administrators to get the increases down, and spread them out over a longer period of time.

Members of the finance committee, as well as Student Body President Drew Shelnutt, have attended budget meetings with the Provost and Senior Vice President Scherrens, and they have been scheduling further meetings to work with the administration. They are also prepared to go before the Board of Visitors to advocate that the tuition hikes of this magnitude do not occur.

So, when you’re writing your check for tuition this coming semester, compare the cost. Look at how much tuition has increased since you’ve been a student at George Mason University. Consider how you never really noticed the changes, but how you’re suddenly paying an extra thousand dollars each semester. When you do this, instead of grumbling and complaining, get involved in the process. Tell the administration you do not approve of the increase. Advocate for yourself to the Board of Visitors. Ask student government to help you with your complaint. Get involved in the decisions that dictate your experience at Mason.

Sources: Most facts and figures came from Bryan Painter, student representative for the BOV. Percentage numbers came from Scherrens and Stearns in their presentation on the budget, which can be found at: http://budget.gmu.edu/ (first link: Budget forum presentation).

What do you think about the upcoming tuition hikes?

UVA has 100% Wi-Fi — Why don’t we?

Hi everyone,

I’m actually blogging from the University of Virginia today — I’m spending the weekend here for a debate conference.  While I was here, I noticed one very stark contrast that separates UVA from Mason — they have blanketed the entire campus with 100% Wi-Fi (wireless internet) coverage.

It’s an amazing feeling, knowing that no matter where you go, you can get on the Internet.  I’ve been in academic buildings — I get wireless.  I’ve spent some time in the residential dorms — I get wireless.  I was walking on the Quad, and my phone vibrated — I had new emails, which I only knew about because I get wireless.  No matter where I go, everywhere inside and most places outside, they have covered this campus with blanket wireless coverage.

So what about Mason?

Mason has made great improvements in recent years, but we’re still not all the way there yet.  When I started at Mason, in Fall of 2006, I often found academic buildings with no wireless internet.  Nowadays, as a Government and International Politics major, I often have classes in both Robinson Halls, which have been thankfully covered.  But I keep hearing from students that buildings they have classes in — Krug and King Halls, for example — have yet to be covered.  Getting internet on my phone while walking around outside? Forget about it. Heck, even the Student Government office doesn’t get proper wireless coverage.

To the credit of the administrators, they have been making improvements.  At the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester, the Johnson Center was retrofitted with 42 new wireless access points.  During a meeting last week with fellow Student Government members, Mason’s VPIT/CIO Joy Hughes and VPTSD Walt Sevon were kind enough to provide Student Government maps of wireless coverage in the Johnson Center:

JC Ground Floor - Wireless Map

JC 1st Floor - Wireless Map

JC 2nd Floor - Wireless Map

JC 3rd Floor - Wireless Map

So what can we do next year?

The University Master Plan provides for full wireless coverage…eventually.  We’d like to see it happen next year. Covering the entire JC with new wireless access points cost less than $10,000 — relatively inexpensive for the breadth of coverage. There are plans in motion to improve this coverage again this summer, increasing the speed by 10x. At the same time, we’d like to see increased range in the outside parts of the JC and other areas that have not been sufficiently covered. Furthermore, over this upcoming summer break or the next winter break, we’d like to see progress made on all remaining buildings and open areas on campus. It’s not difficult or expensive to do — it’s just something Student Government has to push for, one of those Real Solutions we’d like to see happen Right Now.

Thanks for reading!

-Ravi Udeshi
Candidate for Student Body Vice President

Welcome to our blog!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to our blog!  We’re so excited to be running for Student Body President and Vice President because it’s the best opportunity for us to take our passion and ideas for Mason and turn them into reality for next year.  We are Nicole Kukuruda, a junior residential student, and Ravi Udeshi, a sophomore commuter student, and we can’t wait to share more with you over the coming weeks in our blog.  We’re going to be highlighting things we hear from Mason students and faculty that we think we can help with in the next academic year.  Overall, we’re focused on implementing Real Solutions, Right Now — practical solutions to problems that can be fixed immediately — along with a few long-term goals we’d like to start breaking ground on.

But more than anything, we’d like to hear what YOU want to see changed for next year.  We’ve added lots of things to our platform we wouldn’t have known about if we hadn’t spent time talking to individual students about their issues and concerns — simple things like the heating in Thompson Hall or more parking options for bikers.  If you have something that you don’t think is being addressed, we’d love to know about it.  We’ve set up a page on our website — nicoleandravi.com/ideas — where you can add your ideas; you can also email us or even call us and leave us a voicemail.

 In the meantime, please feel free to explore our website.  We’ve added a lot of information about what we’d like to see happen, and we can’t make it happen without your support.  If you haven’t already, make sure to join our Facebook group (link on the right side) and feel free to add both of us as your Facebook friends.  We’re getting ready for an exciting few weeks and look forward to meeting each and every one of you!

-Nicole Kukuruda and Ravi Udeshi
Candidates for Student Body President and Vice President

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