Standing Room Only at President's Town Hall Meeting

Last Monday, the President of Cleveland State University met with the students for the first time to field their questions. The room, Main Classroom 134, was filled with students as well as the President's support staff. President Berkman proposed, "The headline could be 'Standing Room Only at President's Town Hall Meeting,'" but noted that SGA had chosen a smaller room for this political reason, but the room indeed had 73 seats, and there were people without a seat. President Berkman alluded to his interview in The Cauldron from the start of the semester when he said, "I won't pretend to know all the answers right now; I'll wait a couple more years, and then pretend to know all the answers." As he intently listened to and answered the questions brought before him by the students, Berkman was not afraid to admit that he did not know everything about the university or about various issues, but he did show a willingness to learn more about the issues that students feel need to be addressed at the university. Amongst the many questions asked, one student wondered what President Berkman's plans were to improve the campus environment with more than just new buildings. Berkman replied, "I am very committed to trying to improve, really improve across the board, the lives of the students who have committed to come to Cleveland State University." He said he is currently working on ways to make scheduling easier for students with a possible option to schedule classes for the entire year so that the students know what is ahead of them each academic year. He is also working on creating more on campus jobs, so that students will not have to be inconvenienced by traveling back and forth between work and school so much. When asked about how he plans to live up to the accomplishments of former President Schwartz, President Berkman stated, "I want to do what I can to use the developments that we've done here at this university as a way of building a whole neighborhood, a whole university neighborhood, a vibrant neighborhood with a school, with residential housing, with more commerce, with more restaurants, with more activities." Building a neighborhood at CSU is something that has been in the planning stages for quite awhile; maybe under the leadership of Ronald Berkman the plan will come to completion. He believes that a vibrant neighborhood on and around the Cleveland State campus "will make it, for the students, a lot more of an interesting place to come to everyday." Ronald Berkman is a charismatic leader with a sense of humor. He used it to lighten the mood in the room when a student was asking about how new jobs would be created in Cleveland with an exclamation of "Gambling!" with a laugh, but then, he went on to speak of his ideas and plans on the matter of jobs. Later, he told the students about how he feels very welcomed by Cleveland and has now been initiated into the culture because "I can even now make jokes about the weather." Later, prompted by a student, President Berkman proclaimed, "Cleveland rocks!"