Disclaimer: SGA president Dhruvak Mirani is a former Diamondback opinion columnist.

University of Maryland SGA leaders hope to create changes on campus and beyond during the upcoming academic year.

The Student Government Association’s executives shared some of their plans with The Diamondback.

Influencing legislation

The SGA’s liaisons to the College Park City Council are pushing for an early lease ordinance, which would prevent city landlords from pushing students to sign new leases for the coming year immediately after they move in, said SGA president Dhruvak Mirani.

The senior computer science and international relations major said leasing timelines in College Park are predatory and not in students’ best interests.

The council agreed to draft an ordinance at a work session on Sept. 2, he said.

[Here are some of the bills UMD SGA passed this year]

The SGA also plans to create bills to improve life for students on campus and find lawmakers in the Maryland General Assembly willing to sponsor them in the state legislature, Mirani said.

In past years, the SGA has taken stances on Maryland General Assembly bills and brought Maryland Dairy ice cream to legislators, but Mirani wants to make more of an impact.

“I think it is a shared goal among most members of our SGA, despite folks getting elected from different tickets, so really making sure that we are taking a proactive approach, not a reactive approach, to local and state legislation,” Mirani said.

Divestment

Students at this university voted in favor of a divestment referendum in April’s SGA elections. The referendum called for the University System of Maryland Foundation and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to cut financial ties from companies implicated in human rights violations.

The university and the foundations have been reluctant to listen to students, SGA vice president Riona Sheikh said, but the student government will continue to make its stance known.

This university declined to provide comment for this story. The university system deferred comment to the university system foundation, which did not respond to a request for comment. The University of Maryland College Park Foundation deferred to this university for comment.

“Students have a lot more power than we think we do, even if administrators can say that a referendum doesn’t impact their policy, ultimately, they serve us as the students,” said Sheikh, a junior international relations major.

[UMD students vote in support of divestment referendum]

SGA plans to spread awareness about Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and keep having conversations with university administration, said Diego Henriquez, speaker of the legislature.

Henriquez, a junior environmental science and technology major, emphasized SGA was given a “clear mandate” by students to pursue divestment, and he plans to take that seriously.

Mirani said he plans to let the legislature decide how they want to propose bills regarding divestment. He said he appreciates the large amount of input the student body has given on the issue.

Accessibility and safety

The SGA plans to add an Accessibility and Disability Services seat in its legislature next year and hopes to find ways to incorporate student opinions into decisions the group makes, Sheikh said.

Every year, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee holds a safety walk and accessibility audit to find and address points on campus that can be safer and more accessible for students, Mirani said. SGA aims to ensure there are more spots on campus that also comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which sets rules for how public infrastructure should be accessible.

Members will highlight locations with insufficient lighting, lacking a crosswalk or having other issues, he added.

Mirani said one of his top priorities is to make sure “we are really being as accessible as can be for students with disabilities on campus.”

Booking of rooms for student groups

Mirani wants to work with university administration to improve the process for student groups to book meeting spaces on campus.

Students currently are limited to booking rooms in older academic buildings and must do so a week in advance.

Mirani has spoken to university president Darryll Pines about improving this process and allowing organizations to reserve spaces on shorter notice.

Dining Dollar exchange

Sheikh and Henriquez are also working on a program that would take students’ dining dollars that don’t roll over into the next semester and redistribute them to students in need.

This program would help address food insecurity within the student population instead of letting that money disappear, Henriquez said.