What’s Next For Loyola?

Action and Your Concordia’s Plans For The ‘Other’ Campus

NewsMegan Dolski — Published March 29, 2011

Two former co-presidents of the Communications Guild are vying for executive responsibility of the Loyola Campus next year. Melissa Fuller is running as Your Concordia’s VP Loyola & Services, and Natasha Launi is running as Action’s VP Loyola & Student Life.

Both candidates have been full-time Loyola students and are more than familiar with the realities and issues faced by students who attend classes on the campus.

Launi cited one of her biggest issues as a Loyola student as the unreliability of the shuttle bus service. “We [Action] want to lobby the university to get the shuttle bus on time, especially in the mornings and from four to six p.m., because those are the times when it’s used the most and is least available.”

Action’s website says that the slate “wishes to implement a new and improved shuttle bus service from SGW to Loyola Campus which will include more frequent pick-ups and more frequent drop offs,” and that it hopes
to extend the service hours “to facilitate the late night studiers and party goers who live in the Loyola area and wish to go downtown.”Fuller says she’d also like to extend the hours of the shuttle bus, as students have said they use the campus later on for group study, and to study during peak times when the downtown campus tends to become crowded.

She is, however, reluctant to concretely promise anything in regards to this service, because, as she notes, it is run by Transportation Services and not the CSU.

Fuller says that if elected, she would—if students decided it was the best option—approach the supervisor of Transportation Services, Mike Russo, to see what concessions would be possible.

Both candidates have plans for The Hive, a space they hope to use and improve. Launi said she wants to create a Hive Café, which, if she is elected, would be up-and- running by the fall semester.

The Link reported on Feb. 1 that this initiative was in place under Concordia Student Union VP Loyola & Advocacy Hassan Abdullahi, and that the café was set to open either this summer or next fall.

Fuller said that The Hive is student space that is not being used to its full potential. She also recognizes the café has been in the works for months, adding that she wants the CSU to be very involved in the project—without taking over.

“I think that the opening of the Hive Café will help facilitate making The Hive itself more of a community,” she said. “The more things we have going on, the more likely students will be drawn to it.” Fuller hopes to extend the hours of the café, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Both Fuller and Launi agree that the Loyola Luncheon, one of CSU’s currently existing initiatives located in The Hive, could use more advertising.

Fuller pinpointed this feeling of a communication lag towards the campus as a whole. “I had a big problem with the fact that there were no posters [at Loyola] for the most recent student centre,” she said. “From what I understand that was actually a decision that was made, and I find that is frustrating because there are full-time Loyola students that never go downtown, have never had a class downtown and they pay into that student centre fund, and therefore they should be involved in the dialogue.”

To help involve students at Loyola, Fuller says that she plans to make better use of the CSU office on the Loyola Campus. She says that she plans to ensure that one member of the Executive will be in the Loyola office during the hours that its open, to serve as a direct line of communication for students. She also hopes to spend one day a week, time permitting, to go out and speak to students about what issues matter to them.

Launi plans to involve students by promoting Loyola as a great place to host events. “We would be pushing to have a lot more club events at The Hive or in The Quad for BBQs,” she said.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 28, published March 29, 2011.