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Following the conclusion of its fall elections and Syracuse University’s inaugural fall break, the Student Association is continuing preparations for several upcoming events throughout the remainder of the semester.

As SA gets ready for other upcoming events like its second annual Harvest Festival and the Fall Into Action volunteering event, SA members said they were pleased with the fall break’s success. SA passed a bill in its 65th session to advocate for the reintroduction of wellness days into the university calendar after they ended in the 2021-2022 academic year, which resulted in the addition of the fall break this year, SA President Will Treloar said.

SA Vice President Yasmin Nayrouz said she was glad to see the break, which took place from Monday, Oct. 9, to Tuesday, Oct. 10, finally come to fruition after the organization’s advocacy efforts to start it last academic year.

“Students really appreciated it,” Nayrouz said. “It helped a lot with dealing with burnout and encouraging students to reset for the rest of the semester.”

SA also played a role in hosting the inaugural Calentón Music Fest — the university’s first Latine music festival — on Saturday. The event was formed out of a collaboration between SA, Las Naranjas, La L.U.C.H.A. and Orange After Dark. Las Naranjas is SU’s official Spanish language and culture club and La L.U.C.H.A. — Latinx Undergraduates Creating History in America — is a student group dedicated to advocating for Latine students on campus.

Treloar said he was “immensely happy” with Calentón’s success and hopes it will set a precedent for future collaborations between SA and other recognized student organizations.

“I’m glad Student Association was able to use our resources to support a team of such passionate students,” Treloar said.

Nayrouz and Treloar both said they’re looking forward to implementing new events and reviving old ones in the latter half of the semester.

“I would just like to encourage students to show up and show out because their peers have put out absolutely incredible programming this year,” Treloar said. “They have been really working hard to create an unsurpassed student experience.”

Here is a list of SA’s upcoming events and ongoing initiatives for the rest of fall.

Harvest Festival:

SA will host its second annual Harvest Festival on Friday, Oct. 20, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Women’s Building field. The festival will feature free food, pumpkin painting, outdoor games, a registered student organization chili cook-off and a clothing flea market.

This week, SA will hold a clothing drive to source items for the flea market. At the market, collected donations will be used in a swap, where students get clothes by either swapping out a personal clothing item with another at the meet or making a monetary donation. The proceeds will go to Onondaga Earth Corps, an organization that helps young people engage in environmental advocacy.

“The flea market is a great way to increase student awareness about how to make their everyday practices more sustainable,” said Olivia Curreri, SA’s vice president of university affairs.

Students can donate clothes to the SA office in Room 232 of the Schine Student Center until Wednesday, Oct. 18.

Curreri said the upcoming clothing drive and flea market align with the goals of SA’s Sustainability Committee, which enforces and implements SU and SA’s sustainability goals. The Sustainability Committee holds weekly public forums on Thursdays at 7 p.m. in Schine Room 217.

Native American Heritage Month:

SA will collaborate with SU’s Native Student Program to hold a painting event in honor of Native Heritage Month on Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. The event will be in the new NSP house at 113 Euclid Ave., which will hold a grand opening on Nov. 6 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The event will be a part of the SU Office of Multicultural Affairs’ Native Heritage Month festivities, which will occur throughout November, according to the office’s website.

Fall Into Action:

SA will host its Fall Into Action week of volunteer events again this fall, where students can engage with the Syracuse community. The event will adopt a similar format to SA’s Spring Into Action event, which it held earlier this year. While the schedule is tentative, Treloar and Nayrouz said they would like to host the event in late October or early November.

Treloar said SA will release more information about this event during its weekly meeting on Monday.

Title IX discussions:

Throughout the semester, SA has collaborated with university leaders to discuss concerns regarding the enforcement of Title IX. These conversations will continue throughout the rest of the semester, Curreri said.

“We have been actively working to re-evaluate Title IX processes on campus,” Nayrouz said. “The university has been very open and responsive to these discussions.”

SA has been working to improve Title IX this entire semester after receiving a complaint from an alum regarding the mishandling of a case.

Ongoing initiatives:

SA will offer free trolley transportation to the CNY Regional Farmers Market in collaboration with the SUNY ESF Mighty Oak Student Assembly. The trolley will operate on Oct. 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

SA’s weekly grocery runs will continue every Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the remainder of the semester.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that SA helped the university implement the fall break. This was incorrect. In its 65th session, SA passed a bill in hopes to reimplement wellness days into the university calendar, but did not directly help the university implement the break. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on October 15, 2023 at 11:13 pm

Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu