At their meetings on March 8 and March 15, the SGA passed notable acts and resolutions. The Senate also voted to ratify Maddy Sanchez ’17 as the Director of Transportation, five new Finance Committee Members and six new members of the Awards Committee.
The first issue of debate at the March 8meeting was the Honor Code Biennial Referendum Resolution, sponsored by President Custer ’15. The committee drafted this resolution in Winter Term, after carefully considering the Honor Code’s merits and failings. As Custer described, the committee was set up to think about “how we can come together as a community to talk about the Honor Code”. The resolution, which details how a revision process of the Honor Code could take place, was discussed at length. After some concern surrounding the time-line of the process, the resolution was put to a vote and passed nearly unanimously.
The next issue was the Senate Reform Act, sponsored by Custer. The act, which was created in the hopes of changing student perception and understanding of the efforts of the SGA, met much contention.
Many senators had issues with the potential adjustment of types of senators, as outlined in the act. The act entailed eliminating the five Commons senators and replacing them with eight “cluster board” senators, representing different groups on campus. The eight senators would be representatives from the cluster boards: academic and activists, cultural organizations, special interest and activities organizations, publications, religious organizations, athletics, and visual and performing arts. Some of the senators supported this change, saying that people’s actual interests would be better represented with this kind of system. However, there was concern from senators, such as from Senator Gogineni ’16, who said that an increase in the number of senators would greatly decrease efficiency.
While the bill also containted of other changes to the senate, the issue of cluster board senators seemed to be the biggest point of interest. Therefore Custer made a motion to split the bill, in order to only vote on the senators section at that meeting. The motion was passed and the act was put to a vote. The senators voted 9-6-2, and the act did not pass because it required a 2/3 majority.
At the March 15 meeting, two acts were passed: The Coffee Hour Act, sponsored by Custer and the LaundryView Investment Act, sponsored by Senator Toy ’17. The Coffee Hour Act will entail one coffee hour a week provided by the SGA, available for students to meet with and talk to their senators. Each senator is required to attend at least three coffee hours a semester, likely to be held in Davis Family Library or Bihall. Custer said that he envisioned these being easy, casual study breaks for students, with the added ability to get to know SGA members or offer suggestions.
The LaundryView Investment Act is a project that has been a reoccurring discussion for SGA during the entire academic year. After extensive research, the administration has told the SGA that the funding for LaundryView, a program which would tell students which machines were open/working, would have to come directly from the SGA’s budget. This act designated $8,500 of the budget for the first year of the service and $3,500 for the second year to be paid for the system. From the results of the Student Life Survey, it was found that nearly 72 percent of the student body thought they would benefit from this project. The act was put to a vote and passed 10-6-1.
