California Lutheran University’s entrepreneurship club, Startup CLU, is spearheading a new event on campus where students can bring up new ideas to student government, including Associate Students of California Lutheran University Government President Nick Steinwender and Senate Director Daniel Buonauro.

On Thursday, March 1 in the Student Union, students came to propose ideas such as ways to improve parking, add school spirit and incorporate classes to educate students on life skills. Students had a couple minutes to discuss the issue and a way to solve or improve it, and then members of the audience would vote on a scale of 1 to 5 of how much they liked the idea.

The ideas with the highest scores will have the opportunity to meet with Steinwender and Buonauro to discuss the issues and solutions further.

“It’s not just an airing of grievances,” Steinwender said. “It’s more of students saying, ‘Here is an issue I see on campus, and here is a way to fix it.’”

Steinwender said anyone with an idea of a problem they want to fix is welcome to participate.

“Students are pitching ideas to the groups on campus who have the funds and the resources to do something about it,” Buonauro said. “They aren’t just shouting these ideas into the void where nothing will ever be done about it.”

Steinwender said ASCLUG will pick the top three ideas from the event that are the most well thought out and that student government can work on fixing.

Graduating senior and psychology major Kylan Malady was among the several students who spoke at Redo CalLu.

“I’m proposing a better solution to Cal Lutheran’s policy on medical marijuana,” Malady said. “I was written up for having medication in my dorm room even though I wasn’t using it, but I can’t keep it in my car for legal reasons.”

Malady said the only solution that was given to her was having her housing contract eliminated, and she believes that Cal Lutheran needs a better option for students with medication.

“Health Services can create a place of storage for our medication, and there should be a safe room or outdoor area to use it,” Malady said. “Or medical marijuana patients can be allowed amnesty to the rules regarding drugs, paraphernalia, and smoking and be allowed to keep it in our dorms.”

Malady said if these are too extreme, then all patients should have their housing contracts eliminated and they can all live in one house where they can use their medication. She said that Cal Lutheran does not have to be a pro-marijuana campus, but it is a moral obligation to operate from an inclusive perspective for those who suffer from mental illnesses and other health issues.

“We did a panel similar to this about two years ago, but it was more of an airing of grievances not things we can fix or change,” Steinwender said. “It’s great to hear complaints and issues, and it’s even better to be able to solve those issues.

Brandt said that Redo CalLu is the first event of its kind where students can plan to address issues. He said he has high hopes for the future of it.

“It started in one of the entrepreneurship classes. I run a startup business and we were talking about startups in class as well as things at school and things we want to change,” Brandt said.

“We [were wondering] why we don’t have something like [Redo CalLu] to make changes. We were kind of frustrated that things at Cal Lutheran happen pretty slowly, and it seems like a lot of jumping through hoops, and we wanted a way to expedite that,” Brandt said.

Brandt said he thinks Redo CalLu will give students more of the perspective that people on campus do care. He said there are people out there trying to make changes, and it gives the opportunity for students to use their voices.

“Our goal is to show them that there are opportunities if you make the opportunities to make the changes that you want,” Brandt said. “This is the starting point for [students], and it’s easy for them to talk about these things, and hopefully this gives them the chance to really voice their ideas and make changes.”

Brandt said he would love to see some of the ideas brought up actually happen. He finds that the event will be more successful if things are actually done from this rather than just a large outcome of students.

Brandt would love for Redo CalLu to be an event occurring every semester, and Startup CLU is planning on the event continuing.

Some issues that were addressed at the event, such as parking, had multiple solutions. These included having a valet service where students can have their cars parked for them, and students could also be employed to be valets, thus creating more student jobs. A more expensive solution would be to install parking meters to identify where spaces are available in different parking services. 

One student also proposed an idea to incorporate a few-credit class that teaches students life skills such as balancing a checkbook, doing taxes and even how to properly shop for groceries.

Topics like these that students want to improve at Cal Lutheran are why Brandt and ASCLUG feel the need to have something like Redo CalLu on campus.

Ashley Fisher
Reporter