The monthly board meeting kicked off yesterday with news of Apple products being sold at the student store, new desserts and coffee at the cafeteria and payment plans for students.
Right off the bat there was something different in the air when I walked in; there was a more celebratory vibe. This left me shocked because of the ongoing budget battle was affecting the school drastically.
I took my seat and there were some awesome “bribe goodies” which were from the auxiliary services coordinators. I must say the pastries they provided were tasty. For those of you who do not know what auxiliary services is in charge of, they do the cafeteria affairs and they announced some of the new foods and drinks that would be available in the cafeteria. They also announced that the student store would now be selling Apple products and is now an official “Apple retailer”.
I must say, even though I am not a fan of Apple or Apple products this was pretty exciting news. This will hopefully boost sales because presently it looks like the bookstore is losing money.
Another thing announced was a new line of clothes to be sold at the Student Store; the modeling they did of the clothes was high spirited and very entertaining.
After this presentation Tanya Thorsen who is the Nelnet Business Solutions Senior
Vice President presented what is a student payment plan that will aid with paying for classes. What this system basically does is allow a student to pay their classes in separate intervals rather than pay them as one big purchase. This will cost the school nothing and will only cost students 20 $ to use. There is not interest it is just the flat 20 $ rate. This system is said to be up by next fall.
On the subject of payments, the cafeteria is also rolling out a plan to pre pay for food. So a student can pre pay a card and pay for their food in that manner. An updated online menu is also said to be in the works and there is a build your own salad option coming as well.
One of the non-agenda item introduced was “Octoberfest” this will happen on Saturday Oct. 23 in the school cafeteria. Tickets are for sale at 15 $ regular or12 $ for students, seniors will also get a discounted price. Tickets are available for sale in the student store.
There is also an engineering program in the works and will be in partnership with California State University Long Beach. This will provide seamless transfer for students who are interested in engineering and already taken lower level engineering courses.
So it looks like a lot of things are set to change over the year, check back on our blog for follow ups on some of these changes.
-By Antonio De La O
