Last Week in Senate: Middle States madness

By: Jon Dusza and Ava C. Green, Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief

The United Students Association (USA) met last Friday, Jan. 24 at 2:30 p.m. in Regis for its weekly meeting. During their meeting, USA members gave feedback about their experience at Canisius for the school’s Middle States report, a draft of which was due Monday, Jan. 27.

Dr. Malini Suchak and Dr. Jeffery Lindauer were the two responsible for the draft, and they came to USA to discuss it. They explained that Middle States, which serves as “an external review of the quality of the institution,” according to Dr. Suchak, provides accreditation to the university that allows it to receive federal funding, including financial aid. Middle States has seven standards which it holds a school to. The two standards which pertain to students and were most heavily addressed by Suchak and Lindauer were standards three and four: “Design and Delivery of Student Learning Experience” and “Support of the Student Experience.”

Overall, Suchak and Lindauer said that they were confident that Canisius would get

reaccredited. “I can pretty confidently say we’re gonna get reaccredited,” said Suchak. “It’s just a matter of what we have to follow up on in the future.”

While Suchak and Lindauer “think we were pretty comprehensive, we had folks from every part of the institution working on this,” they met with USA to hear more feedback. Senators were not shy with their feedback. At the end of the feedback session, Dr. Lindauer summed up the feedback as indicating that students have noticed downsizing at the school in a negative way, which was met by the senate with nods and murmurs of agreement. As they were leaving, Suchak and Lindauer complemented USA and their willingness to offer constructive and insightful feedback about the school.

The rest of the senate meeting went by quickly. During executive reports, Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations Aaron Hall shouted out Senator Sharon Smith’s work on USA’s textbook drive, reported on in this edition of The Griffin. Nikki Middleton, filling in for USA Advisor Jason Francey, brought up the idea of Canisius having more digital signage around campus, most notably having more TVs throughout the tunnels displaying posters. Senators responded with optimism, but resolved to discuss the topic in more depth at their next meeting.

After that, Anthony Tripi tried to adjourn the meeting. As he is not a senator, his motion was ignored. Seconds later, however, the meeting was officially adjourned at 3:46 p.m.