After every Student Government Association meeting that takes place here in McKeesport, the group leaders are supposed to convey that information back to their organizations. Now, some of the information is ... confusing. In November, I got the chance to attend the Council of Commonwealth Student Government meeting. This meeting takes place once a month and consists of the executive SGA board from the 19 Commonwealth campuses of Penn State, along with the CCSG central staff. These meetings are held to inform the other Commonwealth campuses of what is happening on the individual campuses, along with giving the campuses different information about things that are going on at University Park. The Council weekend started on a positive note ...
On Nov. 10, the Council met in the Mars Room of East Halls. The Council gathered and discussed the agenda for the weekend. Next, we listened to a session on the information technology fee, which many students do not know too much about. Continuing from there, we went on to a caucus meeting, separated by the Northeast (Altoona, Hazleton, Worthington-Scranton and Wilkes-Barre), Northwest (Beaver, Behrend, DuBois and Shenango), Southeast (Abington, Delaware County, Mont Alto and York) and the Southwest (McKeesport, Fayette and New Kensington). We discussed the events that were going to take place on our campuses, along with our short-term goals. Lastly for that day, we broke up into committee meetings (academic, government, multi-cultural, student and THON. All of these meetings proved to be informational and cleared up a lot of

questions that the average student would have entering college. Until Saturday ...
On Nov. 11, the Council group was thrown more information. We heard about everything including the hate crimes that have been going on at different Penn State campuses (mainly University Park). Here is a briefing on some of the things that we talked about:
 The University Faculty Senate board noticed that fall break was not being used as it was meant for (i. e.- for students to meet with professors, catch up on homework, etc.). The Council is supposed to be working on ways to make fall break a more successful time period
The Newspaper Readership Program has been encountering problems with the project. Various complaints have been the faculty/staff usage of the machines, which they are not allowed to do. The money that goes into those machines and newspapers comes from the students. Other complaints have been that some of the machines are broken and that some of the machines are easy to get into, sometimes you do not even have to use your PSU identification card. The group involved with the Newspaper Leadership Program is trying to figure out ways to make this project more successful.
· For those students who do not know, Penn State does not get any appropriations from the state of Pennsylvania. Petitions are going to be circulated throughout the Commonwealth campuses to see if something can be done about this. There will be a lobbying trip during the second week in February to talk to state representatives about this issue. For more information, go to http://www.govt.psu.edu.

· It has been a debate at some campuses as to whether or not their professors should email students in the event of a class cancellation. Many students, especially the commuters, feel as if the email would be a lot easier for them, so they will not drive and waste gas to get to campus to find that their class is cancelled Some Residence Hall students also feel the same way simply because in most instances, the students have to walk on campus before they receive word that the class was cancelled as opposed to receiving an email. The Academic Affairs council was trying to see if this is a problem at all of the Commonwealth campuses and if so, what could be done about it.
This is some of the information that is talked about at a CCSG meeting. These meetings are very informative to the student who wants to know why their money is spent the way that it is or why some things are done differently than others. Brought in as an observer and recommended to sit on a council, the meeting was a good experience. If someone on central staff did not answer one of your questions, they pointed you in the direction of someone that could. The Council of Commonwealth Student Government meetings are positive ways of connecting with your other 12 Commonwealth campuses and is a good source of networking. For more information, contact your McKeesport SGA executive board.