Young Releases October Report, Maps Progress

According to the annual October Report compiled by the student body president, student government members have spent the last six months putting into play the initial stages of projects from Young's spring platform.

Young said his most important accomplishment at this point has been the foundation of the Carolina Lobby Corps, an organization intended to advocate on behalf of students and to raise legislative awareness.

He also listed the establishment of a task force to develop a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender student resource center on campus as a meaningful success.

Young said he has fulfilled his campaign promise to donate his stipend to the Student Empowerment Endowment, a fund he created to provide students with money to reach their UNC-related goals.

But Young is still working on several platform issues, including creating a crime prevention task force with local police departments, convening a statewide race relations conference and publishing a list of student-friendly off-campus housing options on the Internet. He said he hopes to finish everything by the time his term ends.

"It's been a very big challenge, but I think everyone understands that we're doing the best we can," Young said.

The Student Code mandates that every student body president must produce an October Report to inform the student body of what progress is being made, Young said.

Student Body Vice President Rudy Kleysteuber said he is most proud of his work to organize student external appointments. Student government appoints more than 100 people to committees and task forces each year, he said.

"What we did this year was to design a database that tracks all those people," Kleysteuber said. In previous years, there was no uniform application and no accountability, he said.

Kleysteuber also said his biggest challenge has been trying to communicate the needs of students to state legislators. "I guess the hardest thing was to politely assert the tremendous need we have here to keep tuition down," he said.

Student Body Secretary Dustyn Baker said her most rewarding experience in office has been an Outward Bound trip that members of student government took together -- an opportunity she would like future administrations to make the most of.

Young said he hopes next year's administration will continue his work. "But the goal and the focus is to complete everything we can," he said. "We've definitely gotten a lot done, but there's also a lot more that we need to do and that we can do."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.