“Miss the HU townhall meeting? Here’s the Script coverage of it.”

            Hampton University administration is trying to understand the student body a little more. The Student Government Association (SGA) hosted a town hall meeting on Tuesday to allow students to speak freely with administration.

            The administration panel included President William R. Harvey, SGA President Kayla Platt, Vice President of Student Affairs Barbara Inman, Provost Joyce Jarrett and a host of other administration and staff.

            Before opening the forum for questions, Harvey spoke of the progress HU had made in his 31 years as president, including its 250 million dollar endowment and 11 million dollars spent in scholarships this year.

            Harvey and others answered questions ranging from topics of campus life with the cafeteria and dorm visitation to financial concerns of scholarships and inadequate funding for academic buildings.

            While Harvey spoke of the new proton beam therapy center, skin of color research institute and the weather satellite, some students wanted to know why that money wasn’t being used towards more pressing needs, like a new cafeteria or a new business school.

            “We can’t be all things to all people but we are going to continue to be very responsible with our funding,” Harvey said when students inquired about more scholarships.

            Jarrett said that the wait on a new business school was because of a lack of fundraising.

            “We have master plans for a business school,” Jarrett said. “The charge to the dean and that school is to be aggressive in fundraising so that the university can break ground.”

             The small audience fielded questions to the panel until the meeting’s close. Though many questions were answered and issues addressed some felt like the meeting wasn’t as productive as it could have been.

            “This would have been much more effective if more people would have known about it,” said Christian Cheairs, a junior broadcast journalism major from Chicago.

            Many were unaware of the meeting with its only advertising being a banner in hanging in the student center and a mass text that circulated the campus.

            Some felt the meeting had been successful.

            “It’s always a great pleasure to have students voice their concerns so administration can find out about student issues,” said Platt, a junior communicative sciences and disorders major from Simi Valley, Calif.

            Yet these town hall meetings have seen success as one audience member thanked administration for taking action after a request was made to change the student id numbers from social security numbers to random ones at another meeting. The town hall meetings are scheduled to take place once each semester.