The 50th student senate confirmed nine students to the Student Association (SA) Productions committee and two students to the Academic Senate.
The legislative body confirmed Cindy Ip, Emma Nichols, Kevin Kleeman, Brad Gorfein, Natalie Felsenfeld, Liz Rubel, Thomas Garger, Jackie Northacker and Danielle Gray to the SA Productions committee.
Although the students were already elected by the Council of Organizations within the last three meetings, they had to be confirmed by the senate.
While all candidates had their own preferences on what acts they wanted to book for SUNY New Paltz students, they all agreed that in order to come to a decision, they must reach out to the student body.
“I think we need to come up with a new idea to get more people’s opinions,” Northacker said.
She suggested setting up a table outside where students could suggest ideas of the kinds of acts they would like to see on campus.
During discussion, the legislative body agreed that the candidates had diverse tastes and would work well together. They voted to elect all nine candidates.
Sens. Ayanna Thomas and Erica Peña were confirmed to the Academic Senate. Thomas and Peña both attended an Academic Senate meeting before they ran for the position.
Thomas said she decided to run for the position because during the meeting, topics she is passionate about working on were discussed, such as Student Evaluation Forms.
Mike Malloy, director of environmental health and safety, announced that SUNY New Paltz has completed a humane plan to remove all geese from campus grounds in order to protect the geese and avoid ecological burden. But aside from Canadian migrating geese, the campus has geese that do not migrate, also known as “domestic geese,” Malloy said.
“Our campus is not really a good place for them because they’re not cared for here,” Malloy said.
According to Malloy, SUNY New Paltz and Wildlife Watch of New Paltz are working together to get these domestic geese adopted before the arrival of a goose-friendly border collie who is trained to herd geese away.
After elections, the senate discussed their thoughts on the current university drug policy and ultimately agreed it should be reformed.
According to Sen. Marc Pottack, who initiated the discussion, SUNY New Paltz has the “worst drug policy” out of all the universities in the SUNY system. While other SUNY schools have a drug policy that requires three strikes before expulsion, SUNY New Paltz students face expulsion after two strikes in regards to marijuana.
Director of Student Activities and Union Services Mike Patterson said that the school’s drug policy reform could take a few years because it might have to go through the state legislature. Sen. Pottak, a few other senators and Paterson will meet with Vice President of Student Affairs Ray Schwarz to discuss the process of a school drug policy reform.
The next student senate meeting will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 26 in Student Union 418.