Term Half Done, Ambitions Half Fulfilled

Seven months after emerging victorious from a messy election, the chief executives of the Georgetown University Student Association have fulfilled a number of their campaign objectives; halfway through their terms, however, Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) have some goals left to achieve.

Angert, the GUSA president, and Kluger, the vice president, have delivered on pledges to make the MBNA Career Education Center more useful to students and to involve students in programs designed to bolster campus safety. Their commitments to developing academic life and establishing a new source of funding for clubs remain ongoing projects.

Angert and Kluger ran on a platform that stressed reform at the Career Education Center, improvement in student safety on campus, the creation of a fund to provide financing to student groups unable to get money from the Student Activities Commission and greater GUSA involvement in student intellectual life.

The two were elected in March in a run-off election against Jeff Lamb (MSB ’10) and Molly Breen (MSB ’11). Lamb and Breen were disqualified from the election by the GUSA Election Commission for violating poster policies, but were reinstated by GUSA’s Constitutional Council.

Angert and Kluger have focused heavily on the Career Education Center, which the candidates told The Hoya in February was the most important issue of their campaign. They have helped to establish an LSAT familiarization course for students, worked to put career services on social networking sites and helped to increase access for students who previously felt “alienated” by the Career Education Center, Angert said.

In light of a series of similar sexual assaults and break-ins — as well as other unrelated crimes — Angert and Kluger have worked to certify students to drive SafeRides vehicles, starting as early as next week.

“We just got a ton of people certified to drive SafeRides, and the program should be launching soon,” Angert said. “We’ve cleared all the legal hurdles, and now we’re working with [the Department of Public Safety] to start driving as soon as possible.”

Despite meeting with neighborhood residents early in their term, however, Angert and Kluger have been unable to protect students from severe 61D noise violations issued by the Metropolitan Police Department, one of their stated campaign goals. Six such citations, which result in arrests on violators’ records, have been issued so far this academic year, compared to none last academic year.

Angert declined to comment on this issue.

“We worked over the summer and into this year meeting with students who are concerned, administrators, the neighborhood and even the police,” Kluger said. “We’re trying to get a grasp on all of the relevant information to put together a campaign.”

After the Wisconsin Avenue Safeway closed in April and 93 percent of surveyed students agreed that a new bus route was needed, Angert and Kluger worked to establish Saturday GUTS bus service to the Safeway in Rosslyn, Va. This route began operating Sept. 19.

Angert and Kluger also hoped to establish a “Georgetown Fund” that would allocate money for student clubs outside of the SAC funding process. The fund is still in its planning stages.

Angert and Kluger declined to release numbers related to the Georgetown Fund.

As candidates, Angert and Kluger pledged to address diversity on campus, an issue Angert has previously worked with as a member of the GUSA Senate and Executive Cabinet.

GUSA has been incorporated into all of the diversity working groups that have been created in the last year and all members of the GUSA Executive Branch will receive diversity training.

“However, diversity isn’t really something that you would place on a checklist. These types of issues require lots of dialogue, and understanding is really the best outcome. In that sense, I think we’ve accomplished a ton,” Angert said.

But not everyone agrees that GUSA is the best mechanism for effecting change in the realm of diversity.

“It doesn’t seem like that’s his number-one priority,” GUSA senator and former Hoya staff writer Johnny Solis (SFS ’11) said of Angert’s work regarding campus diversity.

Solis said he plans to join the Student Commission for Unity because he does not feel that he has any more leverage as a GUSA senator than he does as a member of Georgetown’s general student population.

“It still seems like the administration does not take GUSA seriously, particularly the senate,” he said.

During the campaign, Angert and Kluger said they wanted to examine intellectual life at Georgetown and use GUSA as a catalyst for boosting interactions between students and professors outside the classroom.

“We wish to promote closer ties with professors through GUSA-sponsored initiatives run outside the classroom,” Angert told The Hoya in February.

No substantive progress has been made thus far by the Angert administration.

“Nothing concrete so far has been accomplished on that issue,” Kluger said, speaking about the administration’s involvement in academic life in general.

Still, GUSA insiders say Angert and Kluger have accomplished more than their predecessors, Patrick Dowd (SFS ’09) and James Kelly (COL ’09).

“GUSA as a whole is on track to improve over last year and get things done for students,” GUSA Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said.

“It seems like [Angert] and [Kluger] are more passionate about their work,” Solis said. “They are more invested, and by that I mean they are throwing everything they have into it.”

“[Dowd] did do good things, but he was less willing to work with other people who didn’t agree with him,” Solis said, citing what he called last year’s “SCU debacle.”

Last October, Dowd vetoed a bill to reauthorize SCU as a GUSA commission because SCU wanted to appoint a non-senator as its chair. The senate and Dowd eventually reached a compromise that allowed SCU to continue to operate as a GUSA entity, but in February, after the senate altered and rejected some recommendations made in the SCU’s final report, SCU cut its ties to GUSA.

Although Lamb praised Angert and Kluger for their accomplishments so far, he said there are more issues to be addressed.

“Additional attention must be paid to issues of diversity, student space and student safety,” he said.

Angert and Kluger declined to speculate on whether they would consider running for a second term next year.

“Haven’t even considered it,” Angert said, “I think it’s a poor way to think, seeing as it should never factor into a decision. … We’re not going to let the thought of a second term corrupt our mindset.”

“We have to make sure that we do absolutely the best job right now,” Kluger said. “The amount of work we have and the amount of time it takes — you can’t even start to think about next semester.”

But Solis said whispers have been circulating about a possible re-election campaign.

“Speculation is that they will be running again,” he said. “I’ve heard from a lot of GUSA senators that they are planning running for re-election.”

Kluger said he is looking forward to continuing his work on important campus issues in the second half of his term.

“I’m excited,” he said. “It’s important to create and maintain a sense of urgency — that you’re not okay with the status quo. We’ve made improvements, but we need to build on that. We need to make sure everyone works hard, keeps focusing.”