The Student Government Association is planning on adding new facilities to help students with legal and medical questions. | Isabella Serimontrikul/The Daily Cougar
The growing number of student and student leader concerns for legal services and a new health center has focused the Student Government Association’s attention on forming a new committee to handle these issues.
“We are looking at establishing a student legal service here at the University. This is a service where students can come in for free or very little cost,” said SGA Attorney General Shane Smith, who is taking the lead on these issues. “This is for students signing leases on apartments, who get traffic tickets. College students get into some various things and we don’t know how to deal with them.”
The plan is to have multiple attorneys available to students to answer their legal questions, Smith said.
Smith has also set up a committee in support of a new health center with the help of SGA President Cedric Bandoh and Sen. Scarlett Najera.
“There are seven exam rooms shared by all the services. (This is) not nearly enough room,” Smith said. “We would like to see students’ input.”
Since Tuesday, SGA has also been holding a voter registration drive in front of the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library. Many students have stopped by the table to register for voting and inquire about information on voter identification laws.
“We got about 70 people registered, which is really good for a voter registration drive for one day,” said Director of External Affairs Bria Riley. “We were planning on having one on Wednesday and it got rained on, and we were hoping for the same amount of people if not more.”
Riley said the main purpose of the drive is to promote local, city-wide elections.
The deadline for voter registration is Monday. Students may still register between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Thursday at the Butler Plaza in front of the M.D. Anderson Library.
For more information, students can check out UH SGA’s website at sga.uh.edu.
Great article! We’re looking forward to making progress on these initiatives. We’re still exploring possible setups for Student Legal Services. Multiple attorneys are one possibility, but we may have to start smaller. That’s assuming it works out at all. We’re working really hard to make it a realistic possibility for our students.
The Health Center Feasibility Committee was actually established by Dr. Richard Walker – Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Services. The Committee is being Co-Chaired by Dan Maxwell – Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Floyd Robinson – Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs – Health and Wellness.
– Shane Smith
Attorney General
UH Student Government Association