Freshman Amy Wasowicz decided to get involved with the Missouri Students Association after being [struck by a car in January](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2015/2/4/after-three-accidents-one-day-mus-pedestrian-safet/).
“At the beginning of this semester, I was actually hit by a car while I was trying to cross College Ave.,” Wasowicz said. “I was really frustrated about the lack of concern for pedestrian safety on campus, so I decided that I wanted to get involved with MSA and the Senate.”
She said she previously had a personal interest in politics, but the accident “jumpstarted the desire” to get involved with encouraging campus safety.
“I really didn’t want anybody else to go through what I went through…I just wanted to make campus a safer place for pedestrians,” she said. “(The car accident) was kind of like the ‘big push.’”
Wasowicz’s friend and fellow senator Abby Ivory-Ganja, who was serving as an academic senator in the MSA Senate, put her in contact with the Campus and Community Relations Committee. Wasowicz and the CCRC committee members expressed mutual interest in working together to promote pedestrian safety on campus.
Wasowicz started pushing toward her goal as soon as she became a senator [on Feb. 11](https://www.themaneater.com/blogs/campus/2015/2/13/msa-confirms-three-new-positions/).
“Obviously, it’s a long way out, because we have get the city to consider (the proposal) then eventually to approve it,” Wasowicz said. “So it could be up to a year or two before any of that happens.”
Her ideas for campus safety include installing additional stop signs, creating diagonal crosswalks, and altering the way traffic lights are programmed.
“(Pedestrian safety) is obviously a huge problem and it’s not getting addressed,” she said. “So the first step is making sure that the people are informed.”
However, Wasowicz has expressed her frustration with the apparent slow progress.
“We are just in the beginning stage of reaching out to city officials …any time we are working with the city it’s a slow process,” she said. “The university has its own governing body … so basically you have to go through two chains of command and get those two separate bodies to agree with each other.”
CCRC chairman Syed Ejaz said the committee is still in the phase of figuring out how to address the issue.
“Where we are right now as a committee, we are getting the materials for advocacy together, we are getting relationships with other organizations that may want to advocate for this together,” Ejaz said. “Who … those (other) organizations going to be, we don’t know yet.”
Wasowicz is now taking on more tasks within CCRC than just the pedestrian safety project. She is now tapping into another project on [Greek recycling](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2014/12/9/greeks-plan-go-green/).
She said their primary goal has been getting houses in Greektown to recycle through the city, and that this specific project took precedence because they wanted to “get that extra fee in” before the houses approved their budget.
However, this project is now facing difficulties as well.
“(Greek recycling) started out with us reaching out to a lot of people, then there was a drastic drop in the line of communications because not everybody responds…we were able to reach out to some, but not many meetings were set up,” Ejaz said in last Tuesday night’s committee meeting. “I think we are at this point where this project is kind of fizzled out; I think it needs a revamp right after spring break.”
Immediately following the meeting, Ejaz remarked on the progress of the Greek recycling.
“I think we are exactly where we imagined us to be,” Ejaz said.
Wasowicz said that her role in the project involves a lot of emailing for it’s the primary method of communication, and it was difficult due to low responsiveness.
“A lot of times, there isn’t another option, particularly when the student body is so large,” she said. “We do have a (Panhellenic Association) liaison, but she’s just one person. She can’t be going to everyone,” she said.
Ejaz said they are working on their outreach with [Greeks Going Green](http://www.greeksgoinggreen.com/).
For current plan of action, Ejaz said they are relying on the “ripple effect”: more Greek houses would become interested in the project once they see it working out well for others.
In addition to that, CCRC is also looking forward to further collaboration with Greeks Going Green, according to their committee meeting on Tuesday night.
Wasowicz said their CCRC as a whole is now in a transition period with the change of leadership, as previous chairman Chad Phillips handed over the baton to Ejaz after he decided to step down. She said that it’s a different leadership style.
“Syed is a lot more focused on letting us learn how to cause change within the political process,” Wasowicz said.
Ejaz said discussion is the “number-one way to get people engaged” after pointing out that retention and productive discussions are his main challenges.
Wasowicz said that in addition to finishing up the ongoing projects, she would like to run for an academic Senate seat in the future.