The Ithaca College Student Governance Council met Sept. 30 to hear from the Office of Residential Life about renovations being done to residence halls and a new housing deposit for rising seniors.
The council also heard from the Center for Health promotions about Wysa — a self-care app free to all students — and about ways to broaden campus activities. The SGC discussed confirmations for the appropriations committee, which works with the Office of Student Engagement to provide funding to student clubs and organizations.
Residential Life
Laura Davis, director of Residential Life, shared recent renovations done to residence halls over the summer. She said Terraces 3, 7, 8 and 9 have had their bathrooms refreshed. She said this included fixing up lights, upgrading walls and floors that were faded and putting in floor–to–ceiling doors for showers and toilets for privacy. She said the added privacy will help the Office of Residential Life’s goal of making bathrooms more inclusive.
“Most of our buildings are group style bathrooms,” Davis said. “It’s really important we are not creating environments that have a gender binary only with our bathrooms.”
Davis said the new washing machines and dryers in every building are scheduled to be equipped with Bluetooth and synced with CSCPay Mobile the week of Oct. 7. This is the first year the college is using CSCPay Mobile, a laundry app that shows the availability of washers and dryers and allows them to add time to the current wash cycle from the app.
“Say you are … drying jeans and a sweater that you know takes longer than the original cycle,” Davis said. ”You can go on to the app and say, ‘I want to add 10 minutes to the machine.’”
Davis also said the Office of Residential Life will be piloting a $500 security deposit on on-campus housing for rising seniors in the housing selection process for the 2025–26 school year. She said the main purpose of the deposit will be to discourage students from hedging their bets by signing up for on-campus housing while continuing to look for off-campus housing.
“We want everyone here,” Davis said. “But if someone is not really planning to be on campus, this opens us up to know who’s really planning to be on campus, how can we make these decisions, potentially offer buyouts earlier, potentially make changes … for the folks who are going to be on campus.”
Center for Health Promotions
Kayla Katsman, health promotion specialist, shared information about the Wysa app. She said Wysa is a self care app that is replacing Sanvello. Wysa is different from Sanvello because it uses AI services, but Katsman said She said what makes Wysa different from Sanvello is the inclusion of AI. She said that Wysa uses a closed AI system, meaning that all the information Wysa tells someone is coming exclusively from psychologists and psychiatrists.
“It’s definitely more reliable than ChatGPT,” Katsman said. “It’s going to be giving you advice that has been reputabl[y] sourced and made sure that it is correct and it is going to be helping you.”
In addition to Wysa, the Center for Health Promotion also told the council about its plans to expand campus activities. Michelle Goode, director for the Center for Health Promotion and part of the alcohol and other drug team, said students who do not use any substances have communicated to her that they don’t feel like they fit in on campus. She said the alcohol and other drug teams have been brainstorming ways to broaden campus activities in order to better include sober students. She shared some ideas she has come up with like providing first-years with a bucket list of activities to do and seniors with a bucket list of traditions to follow. The college has resources like the substance-free residential learning community on the first floor of Terrace 5 for students who do not want to live in an environment where substances are used.
Confirmations
The SGC has several committees that members of the SGC can join to make a difference on the council and on campus. Members of the council running for a committee present their platforms to the rest of the council and the senate votes to confirm them or not. The SGC appropriations committee works with the Office of Student Engagement to provide funding to student clubs and organizations.
Junior Paris Agiomavritis, senator-at-large; junior Login Abudalla, transfer senator; junior Alexis Arias, School of Business senator; Dante Conde, Class of 2026 senator; first-year student Abe Marron, senator-at-large; Manan Maini, Class of 2028 senator; sophomore Anabel Pimenta Velloso, varsity athlete senator; and Juno Brooks, Class of 2027 senator, all ran to be members of the committee.
After all the candidates presented their platforms, the SGC went into an executive session to confirm the candidates for the appropriations committee. All of the candidates except for Brooks were confirmed. Brooks was not present at the meeting and will have the opportunity to present their platform for the appropriations committee during the next meeting.
The SGC is the sole representative body for the Ithaca College student community. The SGC can be contacted at [email protected].
