Pace Paw Print

Pace University's student organizations try to get as many students interested in their groups as possible. One organization decided to build their committee up by aiming for the commuter students, who make up a significant amount of students. The Network, formerly known as the Commuter Network, is a student organization that wants the commuter students as well as residence students to get involved on campus. This student organization's goal is to build a relationship with commuters and other student organizations such as Greek life Athletics. Their current project is raising money for Relay for Life with a big recycling project.

The Network, like other student organizations, assists students in developing a variety of leadership skills. This organization believes that stand alone excellence is meaningless.

"We are of the mindset that we as a student body need to combine our efforts in order to bring truly first rate events to the student body," said Ted Grant, President of the group. Successful events would not be possible without the help of Grant's peers and the executive board members. The E-board includes Vice President Nick Crimarco, Senator Alec Rosenblum, who actually just passed a resolution to provide environmental sustainability on campus; Treasurer Anthony Gabrielli, Secretary Miguel Acobo, Vice President of Public Relations Gina Daba, Vice President Commuter Greek Relations Catherine Centamore, and Assistant Events Coordinator Dara Mam. It is all about getting the word out there and reaching as many students as possible.

One of their solutions to reach out to students is some of the activities that they plan. Once known as the Commuter Network, it has decided to publicly change their name to The Network because they did not want to exclude residents from membership and their plan was to become a networking organization. "We had established strong relationships with other Student Association (SA) and Greek organizations," said Grant. The Network is famous for a few of their events. In conjunction with WPAW they broadcasted the MOSHPIT in the Commuter Lounge every Monday during common hour. "We have two Signature events," said Grant. The first one is called The Network's Bi-Annual Game Night, and the other is called The Network's Pool Tournament.

"The Game Nights have always been highly successful events," he said. During Game Night they hook up a 14 player Halo network and they project Guitar Hero on the projection screen in Butcher Suite. The events always include food and refreshments to attract an even larger crowd. The Pool tournaments were originally held in the Commuter Lounge, but this year the Network decided to go big and make the event take place at Sportstime USA. The outcome of the event maxed out the capacity. Aside from the fun and games, the Network has also raised money for charity groups who develop villages in several African Nations.

The Network has quite a lot of plans for the future. Later on this semester the committee will be working with members of the peace and justice studies course on their coffee tasting and fair trade awareness campaign which will take place on April 16 at 5pm in Conference Room A&B. They also have an event in the works for a trip to the Palisades Mall to watch the premiere of Ironman and dinner at Dave & Buster's.

Past and future events are exciting, but at this moment The Network is currently doing a recycling campaign in hopes to raise money for Relay for life. Members of the organization spend money out of their own pockets to buy trash cans to put around the Kessel Student Center. At the end of the day the members collect the cans and bring them to the supermarket to redeem them for money that goes towards Relay for Life.

"We contribute a lot to the Pace Community. First and foremost we provide a sense of community to Commuter students; a population who we believe goes overlooked far too often. Secondly, we are 'The Network' for a reason, there came a point where we realized that the best way to integrate commuters into the Pace Community is to reach out to all parts of the Pace Community," said Grant. "For instance, to the best of my knowledge we are the first Organization to have an E-board position dedicated to reaching out to the Greek Community and we are currently searching for someone to fill the position of Vice President of Athlete Commuter Relations." Their group is all about networking and building a strong relationship with all.

The Network meets Monday's common hour (12:15-1:15) in the commuter lounge and all are welcome.

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