During this week’s Student Government Association (SGA) meeting, Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Tim Pierson and Provost Dr. Larissa Fergeson gave presentations on the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Academic Affairs respectively.
Pierson’s presentation focused on the Office of Student Affairs and the structure of the university. Per Pierson, the Board of Visitors oversees the university as a whole and the President’s Office oversees academic affairs, administration and finance, athletics, institutional advancement, strategic operations and student affairs.
According to Pierson, student affairs is what students do outside of the classroom.
According to Longwood University’s Student Affairs website, the Office of Student Affairs “functions in partnership with Academic Affairs to integrate knowledge gained in both curricular and co-curricular settings to teach students competencies, skills and values needed to serve and lead lives of purpose and meaning.”
Fergeson spoke about her position as provost and vice president for academic affairs and what the job entails. According to Fergeson, her role is to also act as Chief Academic Officer and to oversee academics in the classroom and research facilities.
Per Fergeson, the Office of Academic Affairs facilitates Longwood Center for the Visual Arts (LCVA), Moton Museum and Hull Springs Farm. Fergeson is also in charge of hiring all personnel in academic affairs and overseeing faculty promotion and the tenure process.
Senator Joseph Hyman asked Fergeson what her role in budgeting is and if she is part of the committee that handles the budgeting process. Fergeson went onto explain that she works with the deans of each college regarding what they need in terms of budget.
According to Fergeson, the Board of Visitors has full fiscal responsibility over the budget, which then goes to the president and finally the vice president of administration and finance, who is the coordinator of the budget.
During open forum, College of Business and Economics Representative Samuel Torpy informed the SGA that the College of Business and Economics is working to fight against sexual assault.
According to Torpy, one child dies every five minutes of violence and one in five girls will be assaulted by the time they are 20 years old while one in 20 boys will be assaulted by the time they reach adulthood.
Dr. Timothy P. O’Keefe, dean of College of Business and Economics, said with those statistics roughly 700 females on campus have been sexually assaulted while roughly 75 males on campus have been sexually assaulted.
According to Torpy, the college will start tabling for awareness on Mondays and Wednesdays starting Oct. 3 and continue until the end of the month. The event will be called Polish Lancers because when a student donates five dollars to the cause, one of their fingernails will be painted blue.
Hyman mentioned the Farmville Area Bus (FAB) is running off-schedule, causing an inconvenience for students.
During the president’s report, SGA President Josh Darst said he is working on having a town hall forum about Title IX and sexual assault. There will be more details to come. Darst also announced that Kevin Napier ‘18 will act as the new freshman class adviser.
Bradley Heath was sworn in as a senator while Joy Hernandez Luna was sworn in as the Hispanic Latino Association (HLA) representative.
The next SGA meeting will be on Oct. 2 at 3:45 p.m. in the Martinelli Board Room located in the Maugans Alumni Center.
Provost Dr. Larissa Fergeson gave a presentation to the SGA about what her job entails inside the classroom.
College of Business and Economics Representative Samuel Torpy described the new program called Polish Lancers that aims to bring awareness to sexual assault.
