ECOS "springs" forward

Delivered at the beginning of the spring semester, the State of ECOS Address is a constitutional tradition overlooked by past administrations.

This year, however, the tradition returns to offer reflection and provide an insight into what we have accomplished as well as what to anticipate for the upcoming semester. The address will revolve around the three ECOS objectives from the fall: continue the tradition, engineer new initiatives and evolve our image as a student government, as well as the four specific goals we entered office hoping to achieve: increase transparency, promote the RespECt Campaign, promote varsity, intramural, and club athletics and strengthen key interdepartmental relationships while focusing on the idea of springing forward to develop and implement a modern vision for ECOS.

Since the beginning of the academic year, we have maintained our support of athletics and fitness on campus, and the trademark legacy programs such as pitchers with professors, providing buses for First Friday, SafeRide and supporting Service Learning spring break service trips. We have engineered the Small Changes, Significant Impact initiative, currently re-focusing the RespECt campaign, generating weekly trivia questions in the Flush and re-launching the biannual wellness challenge. We are enhancing our image as a representative student government through the reconstruction of our website and we are working to electronically post all meeting agendas, minutes, reports and budgets. We cleaned up and streamlined the ECOS Constitution. We have strengthened working relationships with The Current, ASPEC and the Waterfront and, through the ECOS vice president of Academic Affairs, sponsored three speakers while helping to offset the cost for 18 students to attend academic conferences nationwide.

In the 2012 U.S. State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama emphasized, "…we should all want a smarter, more effective government. And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress…because when we act together, there's nothing the United States of America can't achieve."

Now, it's your turn. It's up to you to stay involved and continue to hold us accountable as your student government to improve and responsibly deliver on our constitutional promises; to represent the interests of the entire student body, to ensure that the rights and freedoms of all students are protected, to play an active role in the operation and policy-making of Eckerd College and to coordinate the activities of the student body. With your help there's nothing we can't achieve, and there's no limit to what we can accomplish. Let's make this the best spring semester yet.