Senate Addresses Campus Concerns

The 54th student senate held their second meeting of the semester on Tuesday, Sept. 11. Issues regarding food dining services, library renovations and facial recognition cameras were discussed. In addition, a legislation bill was passed and elections were held.

Student Association (SA) President Josh Simpson spoke first, informing the senate about his progress on the new Campus Auxilary Services Request For Proposal (RFP) forecast and urged senators to send people interested in the positions on the Judicial Hearing Board to him.

Next, SA Vice President Manuel Tejada updated senate on Sojourner Truth Library’s construction progress. Tejada said he spoke to Dave Serino, the assistant director of environmental and asbestos-related issues last week. Serino said asbestos-related issues were among the reasons the library construction contract was terminated. Although, Serino said air-monitoring samples have been done and asbestos is not exposed to the public at this time.

Vice President of Academic Affairs Jonathan Espinosa said at the last academic senate meeting that a proposal was made to recreate the liberal ad hoc committee, which is in charge of restructuring the liberal arts guidelines.

Espinosa said he amended the student representation from two to five seats and elections for academic senate are scheduled for next week.

Vice President of Programming Esthephanie Peralta asked senators to inform students about the Programming Board and Student Association Productions (SAP).

Council of Organizations Chair Rose Faber said the first council meeting will be held on Monday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the multi-purpose room. Elections will be held at that time, as well as voting for Programming Board, Budget and Finance Committee, council board members and vice chair position. Faber also stressed the importance of getting charters in by
Oct. 12.

Sen. Yaritza Diaz addressed last week’s senate discussion motion about the Judicial Board candidates. She said there was discontent among the board due to the lack of diversity among the candidates.

Diaz said she was approached by
candidates who felt attacked because of the debate. She said the previous candidates decided they would no longer run for the position.

“I don’t want the senate to be the type of senate where we push people away because that’s not what we are here for,” Diaz said. “These meetings are open to everybody, these committees are open to a lot of people and if we ever have a concern that might be personal, we should discuss that through the discussion, not during the question time.”

Senate reports included discussion on the concerns regarding Hasbrouck Dining Hall’s new policy where they are to serve students their food on the hot line, the goal of putting printers in residence halls and the Health Center’s lack of weekend hours.

Steve Deutsch, executive director of Campus Auxilary Services (CAS) spoke at the meeting about campus dining services.
Many personal concerns were brought up, including the quality of food and lack of options available. Deutsch said students could meet with him personally to speak about individual issues.

Sen. Roberto LoBianco said he hopes two seats will be added to the CAS board. Senate elections were held toward the end of the meeting. One senator was elected to the Bicycle Pedestrian Committee, two senate members were elected to the CAS board, five members to the Student’s Concerns Committee, one member to the University Police Department Committee and three members into the Constitution and Rules Committee.

One seat is available to students for the New Paltz Police Commission, four seats on the Academic Senate, four seats on the Curriculum Committee and five seats on the Educational Technology Committee, which will vote in members at the next meeting on Sept. 25 in room 418.