Residence Life and Student Government met Tuesday evening to discuss recent housing events, along with new elections and the search for a new dean.
Amber Karel-Gerace, the associate director of Residence Life, discussed the resident assistants (RA) application process. She noted that there will be an information session in the first week of November with an application period opening towards the middle or end of the month. The feedback from RA training will also be reviewed to better help the RAs and students alike.
Karel-Gerace emphasized the water main break and boil advisory that affected campus Monday night and all day Tuesday. “ResLife was made aware of it Tuesday morning. We did not, unfortunately, get any sort of communication from Cleveland Water who has oversight over the water in Cleveland. We didn’t get any outreach from them. This morning actually, I had actually reached out to see if we [were] made aware of the boil alert,” she said. These communications triggered the email alert sent out by the JCU community.
Student Government President Morgan Anderson ’25 said, “The water main break was definitely unexpected. I know that the university has taken a lot of action with the situation. I saw tables in the library today full of water bottles [and] the Office of Student Engagement went and purchased 30 cases of water for students.”
Mike White ’25, vice president of Student Government, said, “I’m so proud that we and the Office of Student Engagement, with how little and short notice of time, sprung into action. They were able to get students access to water and stuff that they needed. I think one thing that we continue to work on is how do we continue to strengthen the relationships with those in the city, to make sure that we are notified earlier.”
The boil advisory has since been lifted. Cleveland Water has not put out an apology for the delay in notification.
Another topic of discussion shifted to the new Fairmount apartments. “The opening of the apartments did not go as smoothly as we had hoped. We are working with two departments, Coral, (which is soon to be Howard Hanna), and the Facilities Department. It has been difficult to maintain those relationships. Ultimately, we’ve done really great work with what we had,” said Karel-Gerace.
Other than housing, the meeting was filled with topics such as nominations for student government elections and the new Dean of Arts and Sciences. One motion that was passed titled the Elections Committee Board (ECB02-F24). The document includes updated wording on elections and the nomination process. On Monday, Oct. 14, the Executive Intent to Run Form went live and will close on Oct. 22 at 4:59 p.m. The form
Lastly, the committee search for the new Dean of Arts and Sciences is now underway. Committee Member and Chief of Staff, Jillian Langley ’26, reached out to Student Government looking for what students would like to see. The consensus of the group was to look for someone who embodies Jesuit education. Langley said, “We had one meeting so far, and [are] in the early processes. We are looking to put together a job description evaluating everything from all angles.” A date for choosing a dean has not been decided yet.