SG quickreader: What happened at this week’s SG meeting, Wednesday March 18

President elections scheduled for April 8

SG President Vasile Valcov appointed himself chair of the elections committee, which will organize and supervise SG Presidential elections this year. Valcov appointed six other students to the committee, including Vice-President Vaska Dimitrova and Treasurer Leorand Ndoni. Senators Filip Taseski and Giorgi Mariamidze opposed Valcov's decision, saying there will be a conflict of interest. Dimitrova said she, Valcov and Ndoni are graduating seniors, so they have no direct interest in who the winner will be.

Student Aleksander Futekov expressed a concern about the possible low turnout of the upcoming elections. He suggested having an SG Party to boost the attendance. "It's OK to have low turnover because SG is an NGO," Senator Lyudmila Uzunova said. She added electronic voting could be a good option.

Student evaluations prove to be effective

Provost Ann Ferren is satisfied with the results of this year's course evaluations, said Senator Zikica Pagovski, SG liaison to the Provost.

Valcov said there are three important matters students should know about course evaluation. First of all, the process is completely confidential. Secondly, "evaluations are submitted to professors once they submit the final grades, and processed later in the following semester." Thirdly, students should not expect course evaluations to have an immediate impact.

Student evaluations are "not entirely the evaluation process," Dean of Faculty Steve Sullivan said. "The part that is most useful to the professors is written comments," he added.
Krise said the next SG President should talk to freshmen on informative topics like student evaluation during the orientation week instead of "the regular ‘Welcome to AUBG' talk."

Students give feedback on draft course schedule

There have been fewer complaints about next semester's draft course schedule compared to the last semester's, Dimitrova said. "Complaints have shifted from Business to COS Department, because of the introduction of the new major [Information Systems]," she added. "The major complaint for the COS Department is that very few courses are offered, especially to students unwilling to take Information Systems [major]," Dimitrova said.

Business (BUS) Department students asked for more electives, specifically Entrepreneurship and New Product Development. They also wanted more Human Resources (HR) electives, Dimitrova said.

Students doing Journalism and Mass Communications (JMC) complained about the lack of 400-level JMC courses and of a design course.

Southeast European Studies (SES) students said there were not enough courses for their major and that at least a course in comparative politics in Southeast European Countries should be added.

AUBGers also complained that there were no acting courses and asked for another section of Intermediate German I to accommodate all students who are willing to take it.

No progress with new e-mail system

Valcov gave a quick update on the issue with AUBG e-mail server problems. He said the problems were not under Office of Communications and Computing (OCC) control, but of the software provider's. OCC is in the process of negotiating with the provider but has not made any promises about the e-mail system's performance.

BUS state exam's a false alarm

The BUS Department is not planning to include questions from elective courses in its state exam, Valcov said.