Congress Updates

by The Cowl Editor on October 4, 2018


Congress Updates


by Abigail Northgraves ’19

This week at the Student Congress meeting, there was no new or old business being presented. The guest speaker was Steve Maurano, associate vice president of Public Affairs, Community & Government Relations. 

Maurano gave a brief overview of his role at the College and the work his office does. Maurano’s office is responsible for public relations of the College, community relations within the surrounding Smith Hill and Elmhurst neighborhoods, and government relations at the city, state, and federal levels.

Some challenges Maurano’s office faces at the local level with the city of Providence is the fact that PC’s campus is situated with at the corner of three different wards. This means that the College must communicate and maintain relationships with three different council members who represent the different wards. 

At the federal level, Maurano is closely monitoring what happens in our nation’s capital for any ruling that may affect private higher education institutions.

Maurano spoke passionately about the importance of maintaining a positive relationship with the neighborhood residence. He sees all of the wonderful community service work that students are involved in, and he wants to emphasize this to the neighbors. 

It is imperative for Maurano that PC does not become a “closed community.” He wants to remain a player in the greater Providence community and area.

Student Congress will not have a meeting next week due to Columbus Day.

Congress Updates

by The Cowl Editor on September 27, 2018


Campus


By Abigail Northgraves ’19

This week Raul Fonts, associate vice president and dean of admission and financial aid, was the guest speaker at the Providence College Student Congress meeting. 

Raul Fonts gave an introduction of himself, his history with the College, and his experience in admissions. Fonts also shared several statistics about the class of 2022. 

The class of 2022 is the largest class in PC’s history with about 1,124 students. PC received more applications than ever before, and Fonts anticipates even more are coming this year, as the College is becoming increasingly desirable. 

Fonts also attributes the increased enrollment to the excellent admissions staff who travel all over the U.S. and the world to attend college fairs and recruiting events at high schools. 

Fonts had an undeniable passion for his job and shared it with Student Congress.

Also, the elected and committee members from the class of 2022 were sworn in and became official members of Student Congress. 

There will be a special election later in the semester to fill one vacant class representative position for the class of 2022.

There were two pieces of Old Business at the meeting. 

The first was a bill calling for mandatory training for all executive positions within Student Congress. The purpose of the piece was to ascertain that all leaders elected by the Student Congress have the tools and strategies to best perform their role. 

The second piece that the Congress voted on was a resolution for club allocations. All clubs that fall under Student Congress met with our Finance Committee with budget proposals for the year. 

The committee discussed the requests and allocated funds to each club in accordance with the new finance reform policy, developed by Executive Treasurer John Stablein and Dean Gaffney. Both pieces were passed.