Senate Adopts Opinion to Include Bias Training in First-Year Orientation
The 2019-20 Student Senate Executive Board (Photo Allyson Frantz/The Gettysburgian)
By Kyle Beatty, Staff Writer
The Monday, Feb. 24 Student Senate meeting began with the usual attendance and approval of the previous meeting’s minutes. Senate Treasurer Giacomo Coppola ‘22 gave the current budget numbers: $49,707 spent with a further $25,754 allotted.
Associate Director of Institutional Analysis Qin Zhang opened the week’s new business with a detailed presentation of the Student Success Dashboard. With this tool, now available on the school’s website, one can view current and historical data on the majors and minors of Gettysburg graduates, including overlap between students’ areas of study and their demographic data. Zhang illustrated this feature by displaying the changing percentage of STEM degrees earned by women at Gettysburg College.
Afterward, a motion to allocate $5,000 from the rollover fund (funds not allocated during previous semesters) to the Myra T. Herron Fund was introduced. Hassan Williams-Kone ‘21 gave a presentation informing the Senate about the Fund, named after the first African-American woman to graduate Gettysburg. He shared stories of half a dozen students who were able to study abroad, go on immersion trips, or take advantage of the job shadow program thanks in part to the Fund. The Budget Management Committee (BMC) recommended that the full amount be allocated, and the motion passed unanimously.
Senate also voted to approve $4,785 for DiscipleMakers Christian Fellowship and $1,355 for the Black Student Union.
Weeks of work by the Opinions Committee culminated in Senate adopting its “Opinion on Bias Training for First-Year Orientation.” The opinion urges the creation of a “similar program as the AlcoholEDU dashboard: interactive, engaging, and informative,” to be added to the standard First-Year Orientation. The motion passed unanimously.
Student concerns were dominated by reports of facilities issues, including a lack of hot water in Latinx House and lampposts around the campus that remain out of order.
Committee reports included an update on RecycleMania and the College Life Advisory Committee’s discussions with administration about providing Plan B emergency contraceptives to students at the Health Center.
