The Student Government Association made a move Wednesday to create more transparent housing assignments, improve campus mail delivery and hang more hammocks around campus.
Senators also gave final approval to a bylaw amendment to eliminate non-senators from the Internal Affairs Committee. Law School Senator Grant Farnsworth proposed to allow non-senators to remain on the committee as they do on other SGA subcommittees, but the amendment was rejected because senators feared that committee members would be unaware of the proceedings and actions in SGA.
“It is just inconsistent with how other subcommittees function in student government,” Farnsworth said.
Bills brought before senate mainly consisted of seating senators and defining goals for the various subcommittees in SGA. The bill that generated the most discussion was the seating and the goals of the 2011-2012 SGA Residential Affairs Committee.
Marchetti Towers Senator Jessica Jones moved to step down from the committee because of prior commitments. Her removal sparked debate from other senators as to whether Jones could fulfill her duties as a senator, because senators are supposed to be seated on a subcommittee. After debating her seating, the senators moved to vote on the bill, which passed. The goals of the subcommittee include improving the transparency and fairness of the housing selection process.
“This bill is looking to aid students across the board and not exclusively focused on freshman and sophomores,” Griesedick Senator Blake Exline said.
Also in the goals of the Residential Affairs Committee is the improvement of the efficiency of student mail delivery. It also seeks to add hammocks to other locations around campus.
“The mail delivery has a lot of room for improvement,” junior College of Arts and Sciences student Mary Hoglund said. “They were pretty slow last year.”
Last week, an amendment was made to strike committee representatives from the Internal Affairs Committee. The bill, which was tabled for a week, was up for debate again at this meeting.
The bill caused considerable debate after an amendment was reintroduced to include committee representatives to the Internal Affairs Committee. Senators decided to reject the amendment and proceeded to accept the bill with its current language.
