Khaleela Zaman DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Alternative Spring Break (ASB) is a student organization that partners with Habi- tat for Humanity each year for their Collegiate Challenge. Rather than spending their spring break on a beach sunbathing, 23 students and three staff members from [IT will be busy ham- mering on a house in Cabarrus County, North Carolina this spring break. With an emphasis on service learning, the entire ASB team has given their time to help those people in need of a decent home and who seek help through Habitat for Humanity. In order to fund their trip to North 'SGAl Zofie Mandelski TECHNEWS WRITER When there’s been a lack of commu- nication between two people in any relation— ship for a period of time, sudden contact is of— ten regarded with suspicion. There is a history of a lack of communication between the Stu— dent Government Association (SGA) and the student body, which is a problem, seeing as the student government is supposed to represent the student body. The exact starting point of this prob- lem is not clear anymore, however, there is currently an attempt going on to fix it. Having SGA senators as liaisons for student organiza- tions is an attempt to fix this problem. It is easy to see why students dismiss it, as there is no general knowledge of what senators do. Right now, senators vote every other week on new ”—41.4 a“ " , Student newspaper oflllinois Institute of Technology since 1928 ASB sells headbands to fund North Carolina trip Carolina, the ASB team has been busy fundrais— ing since last semester. In the Fall, you might have noticed that ASB held a spaghetti lunch and a Rocky’s tip-matching night, in addition to multiple other fundraisers. To kick off this semester’s fundraising, ASB sold some beauti— fully hand-knitted woolen headbands on the MTCC Bridge last week. The headbands were knitted and graciously donated to the organi- zation by Alexa Schutz’s grandmother (Alexa is the staff advisor for ASB this year). Thanks to Schutz’s grandmother, ASB raised $400 after just two days of sales. The ASB team is so in- credibly grateful to Schutz’s grandmother and to everyone at IIT who bought the headbands. Some people might still be wonder- student organizations and on the off-weeks, they update their committees on their senator projects. There are three committees in SGA: Communications, Student Life, and Academic Affairs. The projects they work on range from trying to revise the course retake policy, to cre- ating a virtual tour of the dorms for prospec— tive students. The committees aren’t just for sena- tors; any student can come in and work on a project to improve the student body. Senate meetings are open as well; anyone can come, yet the average student is not aware of that. This just shows that there are things getting lost in translation from the Senate to the stu- dent body. This is not only a problem for the students, it’s a problem for SGA. There are senators who are trying to accomplish things that they cannot do without student body support, and since the students ing why they should donate to ASB. Accord— ing to Rohit Agarwal, the fundraising chair on ASB’s executive board, ASB is “an organization on campus making a difference in the world for people who really need help.” Also, students at IIT, Shimer, and Vandercook could have per— sonal connections with those students on the ASB team this year. By contributing to ASB, you are making “a small contribution to make the world a better place.” The ASB team ap- preciates every donation, and every cent goes toward funding supplies and transportation for the trip, and also to Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity is an interna- tional non-profit organization that partners with families in need to provide them with safe don’t know what is going on, they cannot pro- vide that support. The Students Speak survey is a source of information for general student concerns; however, it does not provide an up- dating source of information. This is not saying that senators are oblivious to what goes on in the school; they are students, after all. The issue is that they only have their own experiences to work with, yet they need to know of other stu— dents’ experiences in order to do their job. The student organization-senator liaison is there to accomplish this. They are supposed to keep the organizations updated on what is going on in SGA and keep SGA in touch with what is going on with the student organizations and the student body as a whole. The blame cannot be placed on the students who honestly do not see the point; this solu- tion has been tried before and failed. However, this is not something that student government OPINION Z CAMPUS 3 A8E 5 SPORTS 7 and affordable homes. Alongside volunteers, including the 26 members of ASB this year, these families work on the building of their own homes, putting in a number of sweat eq— uity hours. In this way, Habitat for Human- ity is not a handout, but rather a “hand up” for those in need. ASB sincerely enjoys work- ing on homes for these families in need each spring break, and is extremely appreciative of every donation from their recent headband sale. If you have not yet donated to the orga— nization, ASB’s next fundraiser will be going on throughout this week in the MTCC, selling singing valentines along with IIT A Cappella. Photos by Alexa schutz iaisons help student organizations can do alone, it needs the support of the stu- dent body. SGA needs to actually engage with the student organizations, instead of just vot- ing them in and forgetting they exist. If a sena- tor is not doing his/her job, complain about it to the executive board. If the board doesn’t do anything, go to the professional staff, and hold the liaisons accountable. This is a problem that was created by the apathy of a few, but it’s going to take more than a few people to fix. It may seem hopeless, but there’s a first step to every great change, and at least knowing a senator’s name is a step. Senate meetings are in the MTCC Auditorium and committee meetings are in the color rooms in the MTCC, both on Tues- days at 9:15 p.m..