Students will soon have the opportunity to serve on a committee for the Hillsborough Street Community Service Corporation, which aims to collect more student input and suggestions about future plans for Hillsborough Street’s businesses, construction and events.
In 2009, a partnership between NC State, the city of Raleigh and the business owners on Hillsborough Street created HSCSC to be an independent, not-for-profit, business improvement district.
Jeff Murison, HSCSC’s executive director is now working toward getting student members added to the Board of Directors so they can be more engaged in the decision-making process.
“About a year ago we expanded the board that runs our organization to include more members and have more diversity as stakeholders,” Murison said. “And that included a Student Government representative.”
This new committee will be made up entirely of students to provide more input about Hillsborough Street development and activities than what is received from the Student Government representative alone.
Creating a committee of student leaders and other students from NC State to give input to the board who will be making decisions is a way for business owners to better communicate with the university and learn more about what students want, according to Murison.
“This is really a continuation of that process, getting stakeholder groups more ways to communicate with us and for us to get more information back to them,” Murison said.
Senior Class President Molly Basdeo will be the only student serving on the board as the student representative, but the committee will still provide input that may influence decisions made by the board.
“I’m hoping we can involve people outside of Student Government as well and get a diversity of voices,” Basdeo said.
Students interested in participating in the committee should contact Basdeo via email.
Murison said he thinks the topics students will discuss and debate will be based on a wide variety of problems regarding events and the maintenance of Hillsborough Street.
“They want to know what student’s views are about the street,” Murison said. “What kind of merchants and activities they would like to see. What challenges they have on the street.”
In addition to the committee, the board is also looking to include students from Student Government in all of its meeting discussions, but students outside of Student Government are encouraged to get involved.
“I encourage them to find leaders from a wide array of demographics so that they get students with different interest backgrounds, Greek, non-Greek, multicultural and just a diverse group of students,” Murison said.
Basdeo said she hopes Student Government’s involvement can also help communicate topics from the board’s discussions to the general student population.
“We also want to share information with them about things that are coming, projects that are just getting started,” Basdeo said. “Being able to share those kinds of things with the students is important and is part of our mission as well.”
Murison said he is looking forward to beginning meetings with Student Government, and said they will be starting within the next month.
“The committee is really a partnership with the Student Government leaders, we’re happy to start meeting with them as soon as they can,” Murison said.
With student input, the HSCSC will be able to finally have input from all of the voices that reflect the population served by Hillsborough Street.
“The university, the students and the alumni are the driving force of the street, and we take great interest in them and their opinions,” Murison said. “We hope to make the street a home and a source of Pack pride.”
