Joan Liu desires stronger student engagement, better understanding of administrative policies

By Abigail Panitz and Claire Weddle     2/10/16 11:45pm

As an active member of the Student Association since her freshman year, current External Vice President Joan Liu, a Jones College junior, wants to expand her role in the SA to the presidency. Over the past year, she has worked on faculty advisory board and Rice University Police Department legislation, helped bring awareness of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance to Rice’s campus, and chartered the Campus Culture Priorities Working Group, which focuses on student well-being. Her main priority is to bring clarity and engagement between students, organizations and the administration.

“I’m trying to get more engagement,” Liu said. “A lot of times people say ‘The SA doesn’t do anything’ or ‘The SA is doing all this stuff, and I don’t understand it.’ Both statements are representations of things the SA should not be doing and also a misrepresentation of what the SA is actually doing.”

Liu served as a New Student Representative her freshman year and as the SA treasurer her sophomore year. As SA treasurer, she worked on the Blanket Tax Crack Team which reviewed processes regarding last year’s blanket tax system. She said these past positions and her work as EVP have helped her prepare for the presidency.

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“I have worked to draft actual legislation on campus-wide policies,” Liu said. “All of my past experience has really built up so that I can understand the SA inside and out. I’m able to identify gaps as well as the things we do well. I think in terms of my past experience, it has built me up to be able to look back and think critically about all the things we do and don’t do.”

Liu wants to focus on having the SA work closely with students and organizations to carry out student-driven initiatives. The purpose of the legislation was to facilitate communication between students and department faculty. Some programs similar to this such as CS Speaks already existed, but the SA wanted to further expand the faculty advisory boards to more departments.

“The whole point of [the academic advisory board legislation] is to include students in conversations about academic policies,” Liu said. “In these conversations at Senate, we’ve had things come up such as CS Speaks which is an organic student initiative that has already happened. It almost seemed as if SA is overriding this organic student initiative. The intention of the advisory board legislation is not to override any organic student initiatives. It’s to help broaden any interests students have.”

Liu hopes to bring not only transparency, but clarity and engagement between students and administrative groups like SJP. She said in order to increase clarity, there must be much more than just a statement of the rules. She hopes that, as president, she can have the SA facilitate engagement between students and administration so there is a clear understanding of the administrative policies.

“My priority is clarity and engagement,” Liu said. “I think it’s about really understanding the functioning and role of SJP is or other offices like it within our institution and understanding how we work with them. It’s not just knowing what they do but understanding what they do and engaging with them.”

Liu also wants to focus on connecting Rice to the Houston community. She hopes to not only get students involved in a social context, but a political context as well. Her work with bringing awareness of HERO to campus is an example of what she hopes to accomplish in the future as president.

“Being at Rice, I think a lot of times we take for granted that we are in Houston,” Liu said. “With HERO not passing, we should know what that looks like for us as members of Houston when we leave the hedges. We need to understand how this could affect the faculty we try to recruit down the road and the prospective students of Rice.”

Liu emphasized that her main focus is student engagement not only with the Houston community, but with the SA and administration.

“Student engagement is critical,” Liu said. “Students have to be part of the conversation moving forward.”

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