Miss the Tree of Lights ceremony tonight and the final event of Program Council for the semester will have passed you by. The Program Council of Sam Houston State University will be going on hiatus until next semester, said president Christie Carew.”Tree of Lights will go on and that will be our last activity of Fall 2000,” Carew said.Program Council was located in the Lowman Student Center, but because it is under construction the offices have been moved to different buildings. Program Council moved to the Wilson Building room 218.”It was a smooth move, we are settling in, we just have to get used to our new surroundings,” Carew said. Next semester everything about the past Program Council will be changed. For the next three months they are going to research students and find out what sort of entertainment students want, Carew said. Program Council will survey students to make sure they are making the right decisions on how students’ money should be spent. The method of how to research students and get everyone’s opinion has not been decided. There will be a meeting next Monday night, Dec. 4. Carew said they really want to get the student body involved, not just select groups.The president and several of the executive board members decided they were not happy with the way certain things were running, so they approached Student Activities Director, Carlton Green and asked if the changes could be made. Carew said Green thinks the changes will only benefit Program Council. She also said that for years Program Council has operated the same way and it doesn’t work so they decided it was time for a change. Program Council is a university funded organization, and it work sunder a constitution provided by the university. It does not have its own mission statement or an assigned chair to public relations.”Advertising of events is up to the chair of the certain event,” said Carew.The job of Program Council is to bring entertainment for students to attend. The money for these events is funded by the fees students pay for the LSC. The money from these fees is divided between Student Government Association, Student Activities and Program Council. This semester Program Council had a cut in its budget.”We changed our programming to suit the cut, we had to consider money when we were planning events,” Carew said. A board provided by the university decides on how much money each organization gets. Program Council has six executive positions that are paid, for 10 hours a week. Carew said that she works for about 30 hours every week.Program Council has certain events it must put on every year, which includes Welcome Week, Operation Orange, Homecoming, Tree of Lights, Spring Fling and the Sammy’s. The rest of the money is used for other activities the council decides upon.Carew said there have been several resignations of key positions and that is why the changes are going to be made to make the council run in a smooth way unlike Program Council in the past. According to Carew, she is not aware of the reasons chair holders resigned. She said the E-board and chair holders decided mutually that changes needed to be made. She said the members who resigned decided they did not want to stay for the changes.Carew did not release the names of the members who resigned due to the protection of the students. The new Program Council will not be decided until after the survey. In the spring students will be able to apply for the newly opened positions. Carew said there is no way of knowing how many positions and what kind of requirements students will have to meet. She said the organization will be started from scratch, so the same positions may not be available.”The big events such as Spring Fling and The Sammy’s will go on, other spring events are not known at this time,” Carew said.
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