The 57th Student Senate met on Wednesday, April 30, to discuss their views on campus climate.
During E-board announcements, Vice President of Academic Affairs Jordan Taylor said he met with the campus climate director on Tuesday to discuss the creation of a Social Justice Coalition.
During the senate report section of the meeting, a senator said academic affairs met Wednesday regarding proposed “mid-term feedback” from students to professors.
“It’s supposed to be feedback rather than evaluating,” she said. “It’s going to be optional but highly suggestive for faculty. It’s going to be during the sixth week of the semester. It’s not going to be ratings, it’s going to be comments based on what the individual faculty wants to ask their students. We just want to stress that it’s only for the faculty to view.”
Senator Jesse Ginsburg mentioned the situation regarding the liberal education committee. He had previously thought that the Liberal Education proposal was inactive, but now it may not be.
“We’re going to try and get the right faculty members to come out next time, and get the people who are going to support the Liberal Education proposal out,” he said. “The committee is in favor of the idea for students to come out and show support for the proposal. Huge changes will occur with positive results.”
Senator Adriana Dulmage brought up the previously discussed topic of changing the roommate selection process for LGBTQ students.
“I talked about working with the housing directors about finding a way for LGBTQ students to have a safer process having a random roommate,” she said.
Director of Student Activities Mike Patterson brought up the fact that it is hard to do a survey and have people pick their own roommates.
Patterson then gave an update on the election process and said the total numbers of participants are the most important factor in deciding new elects and policies.
“It has been a difficult election season because of discussion on what is permissible and what is not permissible,” he said. “I really encourage the next Student Senate or E-board to give more structure on what the election rules are. When people have a complaint, there’s not a lot of things to help the complaint when they don’t exist.”
Patterson also said that as of 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, nearly 12 percent of the student body has voted. Results of these elections will be released Friday, May 2.
The next topic of discussion was the spring concert. According to Senator Goldie Harrison, performer Jhene Aiko performed for about 30 minutes. According to Patterson, the Board decided to not pay Aiko because of her failure to perform in terms of obligation in the contract.
Later on,Taylor discussed how he met with Presidential Cabinet last week to discuss the marijuana policy.
“One of the main points, the resolution, was asking to change the language to give students a second chance to be judged on factors other than being caught [with marijuana] a second time. They did not agree with that.”
He said they also give students the opportunity to re-enter and apply again to work things out after a year and they seemed to be siding more with their current practice and how they currently enforce the policy.
“We were talking about considering factors such as the amount possessed, conditions of arrest and whether they are involved in clubs,” Taylor said.
Vice President of Finance Youssouf Kouyo discussed budget ratification for the upcoming year and said everything stayed the same except general programming.
