Welcome back fellow Pilots! This past week, the campus came alive with the arrival of a new class. The Class of 2018 is the largest in UP history and all the freshmen seem ready and excited to join our Pilot family. This year brings many new faces, new beginnings and new opportunities. With all these changes taking place, I wanted to let you know that ASUP is here to help and be on that journey with you.
This journey started during summer with all departments working hard to make changes that students asked (or screamed) for.
The IT department tripled the Wi-Fi bandwidth to 1.5 gigabytes. They added more access points in several dorms. Internet access should be quicker and more reliable. Thanks to Curt Pederson, Michelle Sutherland and their staff for such an outstanding job to get our campus more connected than ever. All of you video-gamers and Netflix-lovers, use it wisely. They also made sure we have access to an amazing mobile app, called Celly. We can use it as a platform to send private messages to our friends and faculty, and also find events on campus. It’s like a better, private version of Twitter. So let’s get on it!
Residence Life has done an outstanding job welcoming the largest class in UP history. They provided extended doubles where necessary and all the dorms held events unique to their themes. Residence Life was also able to install new laundry machines in the dorms. The new machines should be more efficient and convenient to use. Residence Life’s vision of a more inclusive community in the dorms should be exciting for all Pilots, and as the student government, we are excited to work with them this year.
The most visible change is having a new university president: Fr Mark Poorman. Everyone on the ASUP executive team had great things to say about him. He is very easy to talk to, very approachable and very friendly. All are great qualities that will help him adjust smoothly into the role of UP’s president. He brings a lot of energy to the position, so please don’t feel intimidated to say “Hi” when you see him on campus.
Those, in a nutshell, are some of the changes that happened over the summer, with many more to come.
The ASUP executive board will begin holding their office hours in St. Mary’s. Please feel free to stop by and chat with us about more ways you to get involved. We will have plenty of candy awaiting you.
This should be an exciting year, and on behalf of the ASUP executive board, I would like welcome each and everyone of you to campus. To the class of 2018, welcome to the Pilot family.
ASUP exists for the sole purpose of serving students, so feel free to contact us at any time:
www.up.edu/asup or call us at 503-943-8196.
How to get involved:
In September we will elect our student body senate. Thirty-five dedicated senators will be elected. If you want to be a senator this year, send an email to secretary Mariah Wildgen at wildgen16@up.edu for an application. You can also contact Vice President Josh Cleary, cleary15@up.edu, to learn more about ASUP senate.
For all club funding or ASUP budget questions, please reach out to Treasurer Jessie Robinson at robinson15@up.edu.
Campus Program Board (CPB) is another great way to get involved for all those who like event planning and publicity. If you want to get involved, reach out to Director Sarah Berger at bergers16@up.edu. CPB has great events already planned for the year. Look forward to those.
