by Giacomo Paccione
Dear Thunderbird Students,
Summer TSG is closing for the trimester. As your elected President for summer I would like to thank you on behalf of my team for all your support and your collaboration. This has been a trimester to keep in the books. As we look back, I would like to share the following items with you, which briefly resume our tenure:
The ASU/ Thunderbird merger transition: Though this process has not been finalized yet there were three important topics on which your TSG team got involved. First, we voiced the student’s sentiment towards the Board of Directors about the uncertain future of the school prior to the announcement of the merger with ASU. We did a presentation to the Board sharing your concerns and the constructive solutions that we had developed. Second, after the merger was pronounced we submitted your questions and concerns to the school’s Administration to request an answers FAQ sheet about the most pressing issues. The Administration and the Board of Directors collaborated diligently to provide us with the most accurate and available answers. We distributed the FAQ sheet to you through our communication channels. Finally, your summer TSG reached to the different stakeholders that affect your student experience to create a solid block that allowed us to have the most up to date information about the partnership so we could answer your questions and concerns.
Student experience projects: Your student experience was our most important goal during our tenure. My team and I worked to improve your living experience on school by enhancing the communication and updating the equipment that makes our traditions so valuable. We worked hard to achieve those goals, and with the collaboration of Thunderbird’s Facilities, Housing, and Security we were able to bring you the ThunderBikes (cruisers with baskets which you could check out with your student ID and go around Glendale). Also with their help we improved the student kitchen’s tools, the Pub games, and the technology equipment used by you on Regional Nights. Also in collaboration with past TSG’s we have improved the student lounges by providing new furniture and refurbished installations.
Those projects boosted your student experience but as I mentioned previously, we also focused on communication to deliver more effective messages to you. We created the weekly TSG newsletter where we communicated important announcements, weekly events, and we established platforms for feedback. This last one was built as a resource to create more engagement between TSG and you, the students. The newsletter was an important tool as we were able to reach you more effectively and efficiently.
As we wanted to maintain your student experience, we facilitated a Summer edition of Das Tor, which had not been issued during summer for the last few years, and had been cancelled for this term. We assembled a team of students and TSG representatives who volunteered their time to write articles throughout the summer to keep the Das Tor tradition alive.
Your Success is My Success Initiative (YSMS): To improve the student’ morale we decided to develop the YSMS initiative. This umbrella was created to generate inclusiveness in our community, foster school spirit, and to promote competitive collaboration through success stories. The initiative helped us to continue distinguishing ourselves as the best social responsible graduate students in the globe. With this umbrella we were able to facilitate peer-to-peer workshops for the PMP certification and others as well as featuring weekly success stories from faculty, staff, and students. This initiative will continue for the future terms, and you will be able to submit your stories at yoursuccess@global.t-bird.edu.
Summer events and programs: To continue with Thunderbird’s traditions we brought you different events like the World Night, ThunderCares, Coffe with Cops and the Global Gala. We also enabled events to welcome incoming and BEC students, we organized World Cup game viewing events, and held movie nights in collaboration with Thunderbird’s Housing.
These initiatives are just a brief overview of the summer TSG tenure. I would like to thank you all for being constructive constituents and for getting involved in all of our projects.
To finalize, I would like to inform you that the new TSG is forming and your leadership has already been selected. Fiona Teerlink will be your elected President and Tom Yu will be your elected Vice-President. So, please congratulate them when you see them on campus.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Finest regards,
Giacomo
2014 Summer TSG President