News
 

Senate approves new PR director

Bill calling for equipping all UH police cars 
with defibrillators also gets unanimous nod

By Barrett Goldsmith
The Daily Cougar

Two weeks after the Student Government Association praised its summer record, the SGA Senate took a step toward letting people know about it.

Senators unanimously confirmed marketing senior Katherine Zylicz as the SGA's new director of public relations Wednesday, filling an executive position charged with representing the SGA to the UH community.

"I'm looking forward to trying out some new ideas for outreach and public awareness," Zylicz said. "We need to get the students involved in student government, but first we need to make them aware of it."

Zylicz, who has PR experience with Cox Radio and General Motors, was a co-founder and marketing director of The Cougar Web, an online forum for members of the UH community. Senators said her experience with The Cougar Web would help her improve the SGA's Web site, which could include a calendar and open forums.

In other business, the Senate unanimously passed a bill designed to aid the UH Police Department in obtaining four extra Automatic External Defibrillators, which provide emergency aid to victims of cardiac arrest.

The UHPD has three AEDs and another three on order, but an outside medical adviser recommended that each of the department's 10 squad cars contain at least one.

"You're talking about the difference between saving someone's life and losing them to a heart attack," Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Sen. Mark Annas said. "Each minute that passes (before treating the victim) decreases the chances of resuscitating them by about 10 percent, so if a car arrived on the scene but didn't have one, that's potentially the difference (between life and death) right there."

Each AED costs about $2,500, but the bill urges the University to seek a grant from the federal government or a nonprofit organization to help absorb the cost.

The American Heart Association reported that 240,000 people died from cardiac failure last year and estimated nearly 50,000 of those deaths could have been prevented by prompt treatment with an AED.

"If we can save just one life, then we've done our job," Annas said.
 

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