USS looks to start task force for Greeks

Kali Price

Undergraduate Student senators are working to make changes to Kent State’s Greek community.

Justin Jeffery, senator for community affairs, presented a resolution at yesterday’s public meeting to create the Quality of Greek Life Task Force.

“This is not an attack against anyone,” Jeffery said after the meeting. “It is a national problem. There are some things at schools that are very successful, and there are some that are not as good as it could be.”

Jeffery is a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity.

“I’ve gained a lot from (Delta Tau Delta),” he said. “I want to ensure that the system is going to be great for incoming classes.”

The senate had to table the resolution to be voted on at next week’s meeting. Jeffery said the group would look into reasons why the quality of Greek life has declined, as well as research what has worked for Greek communities at other Ohio universities.

Jeffery said a “great deal” of students are interested in joining the task force.

Also at the meeting, USS discussed possible guidelines for Mobile Campus. USS Executive Director Ross Miltner said Mobile Campus has about 900 students signed up, and the Web site, flash.mobilecampus.com, is now fully functional. The service connects students to their classes and student organizations through mass text messages. Students can also choose to receive messages from local retailers and receive coupons and promotions. The service launched in the middle of October.

The senators focused the discussion on the amount of text messages students receive and how students can choose which messages are sent to them.

Jeffery and Sean Groves, senator for business and finance, both said users should be able to pick and choose which categories under each component they will receive messages from. For example, Groves said users should be able to choose to receive only messages of Kent State’s basketball scores, rather than every single team.

“At this point they can’t. They can just pick, like, food vendors or retail,” said Benjamin Feld, senator for student advancement. Feld has been the USS representative for Mobile Campus since the company came to Kent State during the summer.

Preston Mitchum, senator for academic affairs, mentioned that some instructors and professors are interested in using Mobile Campus also.

The senators also heard a presentation from representatives from the new Web community Capazoo. The portal is similar to MySpace or Facebook, but includes components such as contests, videos, blogs, dating and radio. Capazoo offers a limited, free membership, as well as paid memberships.

Contact student politics reporter Kali Price at [email protected].