By Jamie Miller
On Wednesday, Nov. 13, Student Government and the Campus Activities Board hosted their monthly student leaders town hall which featured a guest appearance from Grand Rapids Community College President Charles Lepper.
During his visit, Lepper shared campus updates mentioning how he plans to request a budget amendment to hire two more counselors and one more student adviser, though he has not yet received approval from GRCC’s Board of Trustees.
The town hall also featured a Q&A with Lepper. An early question was if there was an update on the GRCC’s mascot situation, a question many students and staff have been wondering themselves.
“We as an institution are going through a bigger picture, asking the question(s): What is GRCC? Who is GRCC? How do we communicate that?” Lepper said, noting that administrators are still working on a plan to select a new mascot. He asked those present for ideas and one student suggested bringing back the Raider Raccoon, an old mascot modeled after Indiana Jones.
Next, he was asked if GRCC had any art projects in the works. Lepper shared that he would like to see GRCC create a curated fine arts collection to display throughout the campus. Grand Valley State University has a program like this.
“One of the things I hope we could do as a college, I would love for us to be able to establish a curated fine arts collection,” Lepper said. Although, he said they were a ways off from that being feasible. “That is not something you just pull a switch on,” he said. “It has to be planned and thought through.”
So it may be some time before you can look at fine sculpted statues from the comfort of the fourth floor of Raleigh J. Finkelstein Hall.
Questions about GRCC’s Wave Card program were also asked, namely how many people have used it. Lepper said about 1,100 students and 100 staff have taken advantage of the program so far. He said more data about ridership will be available at the end of the semester.
Lepper also responded to a student’s question on how the results of the election will affect LGBTQ+ students on campus given the controversial nature of the president-elect.
Lepper said while he couldn’t predict what the federal government would do, there are state protections in place. He added, “One of our values as an institution is diversity and inclusion and creating a sense of welcome for all people so we will continue to focus on how we do that at GRCC.”
In other news, the garden club is also planning to do work around GRCC to liven the campus up. The topic of improving the job fair was brought up as well as getting parking passes for all the clubs. To date, students who work on campus, such as Student Government, CAB and The Collegiate editors get free parking. The Student Government stated they would look into it.
The next town hall is scheduled for Dec. 11 at 1 p.m.
