The Student Association announced during its meeting Monday that it has formed a partnership with OrangeExchange.com, an online textbook-exchange service. Under the agreement, SA would be granted access to the site for promotions and other announcements, said Dean Muscio, one of the site’s founders and a senior information management major. Muscio met with the SA Cabinet on Friday to strike a deal for the endorsement, said SA President Andrew Thomson, a senior information management and political science major.

Muscio said he would update the Assembly on improvements to the site. Within the next week, OrangeExchange hopes to add a slate of new features, such as allowing users to post pictures of items for sale on the site.

Since its founding last April, the site has expanded from carrying only old textbooks that students put up for sale to allowing students to post other items as well, such as furniture, Muscio said. The site currently has 616 users, all of whom are Syracuse University or State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry students. Muscio hopes the partnership will benefit the SA by increasing its visibility on campus and pay off in the form of increased business for OrangeExchange.

‘The hopes are now, that with the partnership with SA, we’ll build a bigger user base,’ Muscio said.

In other SA news:

n The Assembly passed a bill creating a permanent Traditions Committee to handle SA’s Block Party and other events. Thomson said the committee will work closely with the Division of Student Affairs to give students a voice in the university’s push to revive old traditions and start new ones.

‘This is an important step forward,’ Thomson said.

Shortly after passing the bill to the committee, the Assembly nominated and approved Thomson as its chairman. Some members challenged Thomson’s appointment on the grounds that nominations for the position should be opened up to the student body in general. The challenge was defeated and Thomson remains the chairman.

n Parliamentarian Andrew Lederman, a sophomore international relations major, met with the Residence Hall Association to present SA’s alternate scheduling proposal. Lederman presented both SA’s proposal and the university’s new scheduling paradigm and took questions from RHA members. He said he felt the RHA was supportive of SA’s proposal.

‘I definitely feel like they’re on our side,’ Lederman said.

Published on October 20, 2003 at 12:00 pm