By Sarah Laud, Staff Writer
At the April 11 Student Senate meeting, President Syd Quan ’22 called the meeting to order and Secretary Evelyn Datte ’24 took the roll.
The meeting began with officer reports. President Quan’s announcement that there will be three more Senate meetings held until the end of the school year.
Vice President Miranda Zamora ’23 reminded that check-ins are still being offered as Senate election season is still in full swing. As such, technocratic, inclusion, and class applications were open until Friday April 15 at noon. Zamora told floor members to encourage the student body and their peers to consider running for a position.
Treasurer Connor Heath ’23 followed with a budget update. The money allotted to Senate was in the amount of $91,511. Current money spent is in the amount of $69,541.13 with $21,889.87 remaining and a rollover fund of $41,994.53. He ended his report with a reminder that there is only two weeks left to submit a budget request.
As one of the final Senate meetings of the year, Datte led the voting of the end-of the-year Senate awards. An announcement of the addition of the Jon A. Allen Award was made, named after Senate’s advisor and the Director of the Office of Student Activities and Greek Life. This year’s recipient of the award goes to Allen himself. The results of the rest of the awards will be announced at the last Senate meeting.
Heath opened the floor to this week’s budget requests. Biosphere came to the floor requesting $190 for materials for Earth Day Fest’s Cactus Planting event. The motion to approve the among in full was passed. Biosphere also requested $440 for holding Jeopardy. The increase in this year’s monetary request to support the holding of the event is due to an expectation of a larger turnout and a need to provide more food.
GECO came to the floor next for their budget request, $100 for a hiking trip to Poll Steeple this weekend. The budget would cover small snacks and light fare lunch for the trip as well as extra materials for Ecofest. The motion to approve the budget in full was passed.
Committee Reports began with the opening of the discussion from the Policy Committee regarding club representation during Senate meetings. Policy has been re-working the order of the standing rules and brought the matter to the floor to get input from the club attendees.
Parliamentarian Alexis Jones ’24 opened with asking the audience why they attend Senate meetings and what makes them leave before final adjournment. Clubs take up the majority of the audience population at Senate meetings, most likely to show their interest in Senate matters leading up to a budget proposal. However, members made it clear that clubs don’t have to be Senate recognized in order to get a budget request passed.
Club representatives brought up a number of points which included the fact that it would be unproductive for clubs to stay during Old and New Business before adjournment. Old and New Business both do not pertain to clubs nor can clubs have any say in the matter. To that, Economou said that clubs otherwise do in fact have the power to give input on policy changes and budget requests. However, club representatives would rather not get involved with Senate bureaucracy. If the policy were not changed now, clubs would have to stay until final adjournment.
Club Reports and Announcements began after discussion ended. The College Life Advisory Committee is moving forward with the bike program. The Election Advisory Committee reminded that elections are in full swing and that there are current conversations about next year’s training and onboarding initiatives.
Safety mentioned that the student body should have received notice about the new medical amnesty policy. The adoption of the new medical amnesty policy is to ensure that there are more ways students will be protected in the case of an incident more serious than, for example, underage drinking occurring.
Safety also announced the sending of a survey to the student body regarding the current key system. There is also talk surrounding the potential of self-defense classes being held for students and Safety will being doing some outreach to organizations for sponsorships.
As such, Elizabeth Farner, Director of Student Rights and Responsibilities, will be coming to next week’s meeting to answer questions regarding the new medical amnesty policy. Her attendance will aid to clarify general questions, comments, and concerns about the policy and its affect on other regulations regarding drugs and alcohol on campus.
The American Cancer Society on Campus hosted their Relay for Life Event where they raised an extra $7,000 totally over $21,000 in support of cancer research.
Passover Seder will be held in the Atrium on April 21 at 5:30. President Bob Iuliano will be expected to be there and other professors too. Jane Raskin is also coming to campus on the 23rd to talk about Anti-Semitism in Congress.
A Sexual Assault Climate Survey will be sent to the student body for a class project regarding potential cultural changes on campus.
New Business began with the amendment of the Standing Rules. The Amendment came to the floor after being sent back to committee for further revisions last week. It was concluded that requiring clubs to be here when they don’t need to is unproductive. The goal of the amendment is to make Senate more efficient between attendees and board members while ensuring that there is consistency with what is talked about and how frequently from club reports so both parties know what is going on on campus.
It was decided that general adjournment would be right after Student Concerns with the reordering of Club Reports and Announcements coming first. Following the decision, there was discussion of a motion to move budget requests early so that club reports can make their announcements after their events would be approved. The motion was passed. New language in the amendment included freedom to add guest speakers to the agenda in any section as needed. They moved to table the amendment until the next meeting.
The Election Affairs Committee announced the decision to change their name to Election Onboarding Committee. Changing of the name was decided upon so that more training and onboarding can take place to ensure the citizenship of Senate members. As such, vice president of Senate must hold one training session at the beginning of each semester. The motion to table the amendment until next week was approved.
Senate was adjourned.
