KU student body president Jason Boots will talk about university issues and his goals for the year.

Pachacamac55

what is your dream date?

Pachacamac55

Where do you draw the line between rewarding groups that endorsed your candidacy(like Pachacamac) and working with opposing groups?

Moderator

Welcome, everyone. Today we’ve got Jason Boots, 22, a fifth-year senior in mechanical engineering, who is this year’s KU student body president. The Plano, Texas, native will answer questions from readers for the next half-hour. So let’s get started.

Moderator

As a native Texan, what attracted you to KU?

Jason Boots

I actually came up here following in my brother’s foot steps. I had visited while he was at KU. Eventually, it just seemed like KU had a great personality and academics.

Moderator

And you’re also majoring in business … what do you plan to do after graduation?

DemoParty

You ran on a platform to increase wireless networking. How is that going?

Jason Boots

Well, I am getting my mechanical engineering and business degree whil I’m here. As far as plans for next year go, I don’t have anything specific yet. I’ve pondered anything from teaching with Teach for America to working with an engineering firm.

Jason Boots

It’s goin pretty well. We had a few meetings over the summer wiht Information services and the Provost to discuss this issue. They seem to agree that increasing our wireless capabilities are neccesary and that it needs to be a hig priority. Right now, we are in the initial stages of determining what the exact needs are.

lilsuzy

With Nontraditional students making up a 4th of Ku’s student body, how do you and senate plan to assist with the challenges facing these students?

Thank you
Susie Santee
Nontraditional Student Foundation

Jason Boots

Well, the first part of helping any “block” of students is understands the travails and their needs. We really want to open up our arms this year to getting out to groups of students to hear what their issues are. Hopefully Mel (SBVP) and I will be getting around to a lot of student group meetings this year.

gokkamini

Is there anything that you feel KU could be doing to increase the graduation rate?

Jason Boots

Half of the problem is that KU and Lawrence is such a great place to be. I certainly don’t advocate changing that. Right now we are trying to institue a gaurunteed base tuition plan, that may have some affect on this issue. At the end of their gaurunteed base tuition years, students tuition will “jump” to the “market value” for credit hours. With this in mind, students may try to graduate in four.

Pachacamac55

with the estimates for wireless internet expansion in the dorms being over $2million, where will Senate get the money to fund it?

Jason Boots

There a couple of avenues to go with this issue, and ultimately the Student Housing Advisory board has ultimate say. The costs will be heavy to students, but if they find the costs beneficial, than they will choose to incur those costs. The costs can be enveloped into housing coss as part of a “technology expenese.” This would cover all of their internet costs (ie Resnet and ARC). If they find that this cost is going to be too much for the increase to housing fees, a lighter portion can be made to just make common areas on the floors wireless. Its up to the students, we just want to make sure they get their options.

Pachacamac55

what piece of legislation are you most proud of having authored and fought for in your student senate career?

Jason Boots

That takes a lot of thought…I actually think that it would go way back to the first implentation of outdoor recycling bins on campus. This bill passed at the end of my freshman year ensured that the funds were available to get the bins and make sure that there was enough money to make sure they could be emptied. I really liked that project/bill.

gokkamini

Looking into the future a year for now, what one thing would you like to look back and say, “I’m really proud that we accomplished that while I was President”?

Jason Boots

Wireless might be the biggest in costs and scale, but bike lanes on Jayhawk Boulevard would be my favorite. I also think that the steps we can take to ensure that the correct advising resources are available to all students when they need them may be the most important. It’s a long term project that can’t be finished in my term, but I hope we can get a god start on it.

Pachacamac55

Do you have a plan to engage the general student body in on-campus issues and make them care like Student Voice did so successfully a year or so ago?

Jason Boots

You can’t “make” students care, but you can make sure they know that you do. I think continuing to be involved and reaching out to our fellow students is the best thing we can do. The more ideas we collect, the better we can be. Other than that, I just hope we can continue to impart on our fellow students that we can make changes.

gokkamini

If KU student government were a reality show, what kind of reality show would it be and why?

Jason Boots

Clever and interesting question…my personal favorite right now is Treasure Hunters. I would say that you can draw some parallels. Every college/university is a team and our treasure is being a great university. The teams that work together the best (students, faculty and adminstration) will triumph.

Moderator

Jason, what other challenges as student body president do you see tackling this year that nobody’s asked about yet?

Jason Boots

Oh boy…the list grows every week. We are continuing to tackle transportation/park and ride. Also, wholistic admissions is something that will begin to be discussed more and more. These are both big undertakings for the university and administration that student will be involved in.

Moderator

OK, we’ve got time for one more question from football fan gokkamini …

gokkamini

Do think Mangino and the Jayhawks can beat Mizzou and go to another bowl again this year?

Jason Boots

Absolutely, they couldn’t go wrong with ex-student senator Jon Cornish! Realistically, we came off of a great year last and I think the enthusiasm in players and fans is still building. We may struggle early while our new quarterbacks and linebackers get settled in, but come conference play, we’ll be an unstoppable force.

Moderator

Well, thank you, Jason, for coming in to chat with our readers. Learn more about Jason’s agenda for the year and get comprehensive coverage of university faces and issues in the 2006 KU Edition, which will be included in Saturday’s Journal-World.

Jason Boots

Thanks everybody for joining and bearing with my poor keyboarding skills.. I love answering questions, so if you have some that didn’t get answered, please feel free to email me anytime!