Maduka works with other statewide SGA presidents

Iheanyi Maduka sure had a good time this past weekend.
On Nov. 8, Maduka attended the Student Advisory Council (SAC) Meeting — a committee composed of all the Student Government Association presidents in the University System of Georgia that advises the Chancellor and the Board of Regents.
“We talked about many issues affecting students in the University System of Georgia, including the status of the HOPE scholarship. Here is a brief synopsis of what we discussed at the meeting,” said Maduka. “We were informed that about $750 million a year goes towards the HOPE scholarship and the pre-kindergarten program.”
Given increasing enrollment, HOPE is being financially challenged. The fear is that in a couple of years, if nothing is done, the HOPE and Pre-kindergarten programs will likely exceed the $750 million available to sustain them.
“The government feels that a cut of about $200 million from the HOPE scholarship will fix the problem in the short run,” said Maduka.
Maduka mentioned a variety of options that were presented to the SGA presidents:
* A gradual reduction (20% first year and 40% second year, until it is totally phased out) of HOPE supported student fees and books.
* A limit on the number of hours (60 credit hours) that technical institute students can be eligible for HOPE.
* Reduce the initial evaluation tier (currently 30 hours) down to 24 hours.
The Curriculum Advising Planning Program (CAPP) is an online degree audit software program that is being implemented at all the campuses using the Banner Student System.
“CAPP is something that will only help the students,” said Maduka. “I learned so much over the weekend. The Board of Regents really wants to help students.”
CAPP is expected to provide students and faculty with real-time, online information on progress towards degree goals.
“I believe this will be an invaluable tool for students and our University and is way ahead of schedule in implementing CAPP,” said Maduka.
The Multi-Institutional Functionality project (MIF) is another System-Wide initiative designed to facilitate access to courses and programs offered at institutions across the state and streamline the processes that students undertake in order to take courses from more than one institution.
“In this age of constant class clashes, this will be a very valuable tool, which is expected to be ready for testing in 2005,” said Maduka. “The Board of Regents wants to address students about their problems and concerns.”
“I was able to meet several different SGA presidents. By getting feedback from other presidents, and myself giving information back, we were able to compare our jobs.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 14 2003. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry