Laureano Figueroa is a Sophomore Advertising Major.
Greetings! I’m Laureano Figueroa and I serve as the Vice President of Public Relations on ASUSF Senate. As the Foghorn introduces its newest weekly report on the ASUSF Senate news feature, I’m overjoyed with the Foghorn’s help in getting us closer to accomplishing our goal of transparency. Coming into the start of Fall semester, one of my biggest goals as the Vice President of Public Relations was to create transparency with ASUSF Senate in relation to other student organizations, administration, and the general student body. I personally know all the hard work the senators put into making the students at the University of San Francisco feel like USF is their home; however, it doesn’t help if we don’t constantly let the student body know about our progress. We, as a Senate, can’t assume that the student body is fully aware of all the initiatives that we are working towards. Part of what my Public Relations committee and I are working on this year is creating a more consistent relationship with the students; however, we find it difficult to reach out to all types of students from all parts of campus, because our main sources of communication are people who follow us on Facebook or other social media platforms. By having the Foghorn join us for our weekly Senate meetings, we are able to release important information in another outlet to get the news about Senate out to the student body and I couldn’t be happier about it.
We are the student government; we talk about issues that affect the entire USF community so having the school newspaper cover our meetings only makes sense. In our Senate meetings we can sometimes discuss controversial issues which includes, but is not limited to: academia, budgets, student life, etc., that we have a lot of background on. That being said, certain discussions can be taken out of context which have the possibility of creating misunderstandings. However, we as Associated Students of the University of San Francisco need to keep in mind that nothing will ever be completely perfect and when misunderstandings do arise, handle the situation with care. Looking overall at the big picture, I see nothing but good things coming out of this new column. As the Senate we work closely with the entire SLE professional staff as well as graduate interns; however, utilizing the system of check and balances with the school newspaper is always necessary. The last three articles I’ve read from the Foghorn have been informational, accurate and above all else, candid. The outside perspective of how Senate functions is always appreciated and is essentially one of the only ways we as an organization can grow and improve the way we serve the student body. I look forward to seeing how the Senate column on the Foghorn will improve the knowledge and information that students receive about Senate. I invite and encourage the San Francisco Foghorn to continue to be a part of the Senate community and report the news that they deem newsworthy.
