UA is optimistic about transparency efforts despite low attendance at open forum

The Undergraduate Assembly held an open forum meeting Sunday night with a focus on boosting attendance from the Penn community. Despite low turnout from non-UA affiliated students, UA leaders said they still felt the event was a step in the right direction.

“About seven people [who are] not associate members or UA members showed up," UA Speaker and College junior Brian Goldstein said. 

Goldstein said although the UA was hoping for greater attendance, “it’s a start,” and expressed hope that future meetings would see greater participation from members of the Penn community.

The open forum meeting operated the same as any regular UA general board meeting, all of which are already open to Penn students, UA Vice President and College junior Jordan Andrews said. The main difference with this meeting was the marketing of the event as an “open forum” to encourage students to attend and voice their opinions.

“I think the goal really was just to publicize the fact that open forum is a thing that we have at every meeting,” Andrews said.

Goldstein said the main objectives of advertising the open forum were to increase “awareness and transparency of what the UA does” and “to hear some opinions of people not in the UA.”

Increased transparency is a goal that UA leaders said they are prioritizing this semester. In addition to the open forum, the UA is continuing their tabling initiative on Locust Walk, which began last fall. Through the initiative, Penn students can speak with UA leaders and voice questions or concerns in a face-to-face setting.

Goldstein attributed low attendance at the open forum meeting to its date early in the semester and said the meeting could have been “marketed a little better.”

The meeting went “well overall,” Andrews said, despite “room for improvement in the future.”