Archivist note: Originally published on the Elections WordPress site. Sep 21, 2014 @ 23:10, “Off-Campus Representative(s)”
Ava Hawkinson & Brenna Levitan
Hello, we are Brenna Levitin and Ava Hawkinson, and we are running for the position of Off-Campus Representatives.
We are interested in this position because we care about the needs of off-campus students and are excited to represent this diverse group in SGA. We think that this job will require frequent engagement with the off-campus student body, seeking out and listening to their opinions, and dogged pursuit of positive changes.
Our goal is to help bridge the gap between on-campus and off-campus students. We will plan daytime events, as they are more accessible to those of us who live off-campus. Many of Bryn Mawr’s social activities aren’t very convenient for students who live off-campus, and it’s important that off-campus students still feel like part of the community.
We plan to communicate regularly with fellow off-campus students to encourage an open flow of information from SGA to individual students as well as hosting social events and roommate mixers.
We understand that traditional-age students and McBrides live off-campus for a variety of reasons, and we are committed to representing each of them and helping people with financial issues.
Some of what we do in our spare time includes: Brenna is on the Constitutional Review Committee and is an Independent Major Representative, and Ava is a Supervisor at Erdman, a member of the Bryn Mawr Green Ambassadors and is a Student Representative on the Creative Writing Search Committee. Brenna is also the Transfer Student Advocacy Representative, which has taught her how to listen to constituents and advocate for them to faculty, administration, and fellow students.
Thank you for reading!
Jingling (Renee) Li
When I was planning where to live during freshman year, I spent decent amount of time doing researches about different housing possibilities including school apartments such as HCA, Overbrook apartment, student-approved housing in lower Merion township, and house/apartments in Philadelphia or Swarthmore. Therefore, I fully understand how complicated the process is for a Bryn Mawr students to live off-campus. Thus, I want to be a useful resource for the community to let all the researches I have done also be available to them. At the same time, I want to act as a bridge to let the students who live off-campus still have the opportunities to enjoy campus life and involve in campus events. Moreover, I feel it would be great if students who live off-campus can still get to know their Bryn Mawr neighbors and have close relationships with each other. If I have the honor to be an off-campus representative, I would like to create possibilities for off-campus students meet together and get to know their neighborhood—we can go grocery shopping together, help new comers with problems such as how to set up the internet and so on.
Growing from a freshman to a sophomore, I even more enjoy the Bryn Mawr community and would like to be a more helpful and active participant in Self-Government Association. Therefore, I feel much honored that I could be nominated for this position so that I could have the opportunity to better represent a specific group of students in this community. I hope that we together can create a close-related environment between off-campus and on-campus students, to make living off-campus a more affordable choice for students who want to try. Off-campus, but still of campus.
Fergie Liang
Dear Mawrtyers:
Hello, my name is Yan Liang, go by Fergie and I am excited to represent the community of Mawrtyers who are either currently living off-campus and looking forward to live outside of the campus and lower the living cost and build an off-campus community among Mawrtyers. I am currently a junior in the math program and I have been exposed to the living environment outside campus for over a year and a half ever since I was a freshman. I am a frequent “mover” and I have done a lot researches about the apartments around Bryn Mawr and Haverford, I visited almost every single one of them and had a contact with the managers of these apartments. The reason why I chose to live off campus was that I love cooking, baking and share my fresh home-made cookies, lemon pies and cupcakes with my peers who are living outside of the campus as I do. I am very curious about this whole community not because only because they are part of the Bryn Mawr community, but that I am a significant one of them.
When I was taking a journalism class, I wrote an article reporting the how the life is if a bryn mawr student is living off campus, which was greatly appreciated by my professor. I did a questionnaire and interviewed several students who were living off-campus about why they chose to move out of the campus and thus, i have a deep understanding about the reason and motivation behind this act. Therefore, I would love to offer my helps to people who met troublesome during their daily life off campus based on what I observed and sympathized.
I was involved with the responsibility of an off-campus representative when I was a sophomore. I helped out Sara Kim, who is the off-campus representative last year, designing the surveys sent out through emails to the whole off-campus community and organized meetings. I thought it would be a great idea if we have a more fluent information share among the off-campus community regarding opinions about new-semester hauls, different apartments, utility-installment, goods-trading, furniture-sale, food-share, credit-building.. all aspects of life! You want a car pool late at night? You have trouble setting up your comcast wifi? You have trouble understanding your lease? No problem! I am here for you, and I have the whole bryn mawr off-campus community behind me. So stop worrying! I would arrange several necessary meetings throughout the semester with my home-made desserts freshly baked offered. I will also build a virtual community for better communications. If I were selected, I promise to build a beautiful website for off-campus community for exchanging information purpose. So stay online!
My biggest wish is to lower the living cost, keep people safe and have home-made deserts! If you think this simple, sweet idea of mine would serve you well, vote for me! Thank you for your consideration and I sincerely hope you see me as a worthy candidate for this position!!
yliang01@brynmawr.edu