Moni's Hanging With The UHD Gators

The Gators at the University of Houston Downtown, that is.

On this overcast, cold and wet Thursday afternoon I headed over to the UHD campus yesterday to check out their first spring semester Safe Zone meeting for a few reasons.  It was the last one being facilitated by Kristopher Sharp before he resigned the presidency of the group to do his internship in Washington DC.    They were also electing new Safe Zone officers and the UHD SGA was having an open house after that I was invited to.

I was also in the UH-Downtown house to represent the Creating Change Houston Host Committee to talk about the conference starting a few days from now. 

I also had the bonus of seeing our future city councilmember Jenifer Rene Pool ( Jen's going to run again in 2015) speak to the assembled Safe Zone meeting attendees about advocacy and civic engagement.

So yes, it was cool to watch the new student leaders step up and explain in one-two minute speeches why they wanted their various leadership positions and qualifications for doing so, followed by the votes of their peers.

Congratulations to all the new and returning Safe Zone officers.  May your efforts to continue to build the best organization on the UHD campus be wildly successful.

When it was my turn to speak I went into a brief overview of the conference, let the students know about how they could volunteer, some of the seminars and workshops available and why they should consider attending CC14 if possible. 

So after I spoke, Dr Hudson said a few words and we headed across the hall to SGA's offices for pizza, drinks and a tour of their space in which they work hard to make the UHD campus better for all UHD Gators as evidenced by the recent passage of the gender neutral restroom resolution that got major media coverage inside and outside the Houston area  

I also had a wonderful time talking to SGA President Isaac Valdez, Heather, Sarah, Ashton, Marie Angel, and the rest of the assembled UHD students there about everything from the upcoming Super Bowl to politics to the evolution of music portability from 8-tracks to iPods.   

Didn't leave the campus until nearly 6 PM because I was enjoying the time I was spending there.   But with all the stuff Safe Zone is planning this semester along with the UHD SGA, probably won't be long before I'm back at One Main Street reporting on it.