Justin Onwenu aims to improve communication, resolve student concerns as EVP

By Abigail Panitz and Claire Weddle     2/15/16 9:08am

As a candidate for Student Association External Vice President, Justin Onwenu’s platform focuses on a broad range of issues. In his campaign platform, Onwenu said as EVP he hopes to expand the use of tetra and give student more options with the meal plan, to establish greater lines of communication between students and the Honor Council and Student Judicial Programs, to increase the ability of students to give academic input through faculty advisory boards and to promote environmental sustainability.

As a freshman, Onwenu served as a SA New Student Representative, and he is currently the SA Senator representing Sid Richardson College.

Onwenu said some of his current work with advisory board legislation, which is setting up student boards to offer input in the Political Science, Psychology and Bio Sciences departments, has helped prepare him for the role of EVP.

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“I wanted a way for students to directly communicate with their department chairs and get feedback in terms of curriculum changes and course offerings,” he said. “My long term vision for this is expanding it to other departments and see it implemented across the campus.”

Besides his work with the faculty advisory board legislation, Onwenu has also been working closely with the Rice University Police Department to create student input boards to communicate with RUPD.

“There are a lot of discussions about things like bike security and safety on the outer loop,” Onwenu said. “These discussions have been happening very disjointedly. I wrote legislation that we have a similar thing as the faculty advisory boards but for RUPD that could allow students to offer their input on issues. My big thing as a senator has been allowing students to directly communicate with administrators.”

As EVP, Onwenu also said he hopes to expand the use of tetra to local restaurants.

“I think it would be really beneficial for students to use the money they have already paid to the university instead of having to go out of pocket,” Onwenu said. “That ties into the issue of low income students who already pay tuition and then have to go out of pocket to pay for meals every Saturday. One idea has been opening the servery on Saturday nights for dinner, but I think a lot less expensive and more reasonable approach would be to allow Rice students to use the money they have already paid for at Chipotle and other off campus restaurants.”

Another way Onwenu said he wants to improve communication is regarding Honor Council, alcohol and SJP policies.

“SJP, Honor Council and alcohol policy are all kind of trigger words,” Onwenu said. “There have been a lot of policies that students feel are unfair. However, these concerns and complaints just circle around on social media and from student to student. These concerns aren't being brought up by student leaders as much as I'd like to see. I want to work with administrators and students to come to an understanding and cut down on some of the tension that exists.”

The final issue Onwenu focused on in his platform is increasing the SA involvement with issues like environmental sustainability. He talked about work he has already done in regards to the faulty campus sprinkler system.

“There was a post on Yik Yak with pictures of sprinkler water coming out the same time as the rain,” Onwenu said. “I thought that was crazy. We should be promoting environmental sustainability at Rice. I took that from Yik Yak and immediately contacted higher level administrators and said this is a problem students have noticed. Within a day, they got back to me and said they would address the problem as soon as possible.”

Onwenu said that as EVP he can bring student criticisms to the attention of the administration in order to bring about a change.

“I think what I can bring as an EVP is someone who willing to take outrage that people have and don’t know how to really fix and find avenues to get what they want fixed,” Onwenu said. “Fixing the disconnect is something I’d really like to do.”

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