By Garrett Adams, Staff Writer
Approved amendments, adopted opinions, successful budget requests, and visits from Campus IT and the Center for Career Engagement made for a smooth Student Senate meeting on Monday evening.
Senate Vice President Jack Lashendock ’20 began by discussing bi-weekly office hours. The Senate executive board shared that they have a plan in the works to make officers available for office hours so that students may come to them in person to individually discuss problems across campus.
The meeting then turned to old business from last week and the adoption of two tabled amendments. The first amendment was the reclamation of Senate-funded property, which would allow Senate to reclaim any property that has been purchased with Senate funds from clubs that have been de-recognized by them. The items would be held for five years and then have the option to be sold, discarded, or destroyed, should no other club claim the items. This amendment passed.
The second amendment was the Senate recognition amendment. It means that Senate will no longer be voting on club recognition and will only be informed through the Clubs Liaison when they have turned in all their paperwork. This amendment was also passed.
Gavin Foster of the Gettysburg IT department came to discuss the implementation of mobile course evaluations. The entire process would be done through mobile phones utilizing the Campus mobile site. The evaluations will still be held in class to help boost participation in the evaluations and will remain completely anonymous.
“There are only two people on the planet that can take the numbers your professor sees back to your names,” Foster said, of the remaining course evaluation confidentiality.
The college hopes that an online process will boost efficiency by limiting the time it takes to review feedback for professors and courses, while also maintaining a high level of integrity in the evaluations.
Then, the Center for Career Engagement briefly discussed the options for the job shadowing programs over winter break. Applications for this process are due on Sunday, Nov. 3.
Senate then moved into new business, starting with a new amendment which would help ensure that items bought for clubs with Senate funding would be available to all club members.
“It’s up to the members to actually take advantage of what they have,” Parliamentarian Shane Carley ’22 said. This amendment was tabled until the next meeting.
Senate then moved onto a new opinion regarding single-user bathrooms across campus. The opinion would ask the college to enforce a policy that would designate single-user bathrooms as non-gendered across campus. This opinion was adopted and approved.
The Latin American Student Association then came forward for a budget request for their LASA Dinner Night. They mentioned they would be helping to raise funds for organizations within Gettysburg to support Latinx communities.
SPARK was also recognized by Senate on Monday. This club aims to be a safe space for people to cope with difficult subjects and stories revolving around mental illness on campus.
