ASUW met Tuesday night, gaveling in at 7:05 p.m. Minutes from the meeting prior as well as the agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting were approved.
Senate Bills 2573 and 2574 were on the agenda as old business.
SB 2573, regarding the dissolution of the ASUW Constitution Committee remains tabled in Steering Committee.
SB 2574, which pertains to the reinstatement of the ASUW mentor program for freshman senators, received second reading, a do-pass recommendation from the Program and Institutional Development Committee and was approved by the full senate for discussion.
Alex McKenna, adviser for Freshman Senate, spoke from the gallery about the legislation regarding the former ASUW mentor program.
“It has been unsuccessful in the past, if you guys have been a part of it in the past you would know,” McKenna said.
The first event put on to join freshman senators with ASUW senators was poorly attended by ASUW senators.
“We had our first event on Sunday, the freshmen senators were very excited about it,” McKenna said. “We actually had a good turnout on their side, but unfortunately less than half of you who signed up and were interested in the event actually showed up.”
McKenna said that she remains willing to work something out with ASUW Vice President Welsh regarding the mentorship program, but expressed concern over ASUW senator commitment.
Aside from McKenna’s statement, there was no further discussion on SB 2574 among senators and the legislation was given a third reading. It passed by a vote of 26 to 1.
Senate resolutions 2575 and 2577 as well as Senate Bill 2576 were on the agenda as new business.
The senate moved to resolve itself into Committee-of-the-Whole, with Senator Defebaugh as chair in order to consider SR 2575, titled Support for the Creation of the Academic Affairs/Student Affairs Trustee Committee.
Discussion on SR 2575 revolved around the necessity of creating the Academic Affairs/Student Affairs committee.
“These committees were created on an ad hoc basis in July of 2008 and it was less so of a decision that they were not needed, but more of an oversight that they were brought on to deal with specific, heavily needed student and research-based issues that were on the table at the time,” President Wetzel said.
He said that the committee simply ceased to exist as a result of failing to continue its existence as an ad hoc committee or elevating it to a standing committee.
“At the end of dealing with that issue, rather than re-upping as an ad hoc every single year like we have to do, or finding new issues to put before the committee or turning it into a standing committee, it kind of just went away because they started focusing on new issues again,” Wetzel said.
The Committee as a whole voted unanimously to move the resolution to the full senate with a do-pass recommendation. Having reassembled into full senate, the resolution received some grammatical and structural amendments and was passed with a unanimous vote in favor with amendments.
SB 2576 and SR 2577 received first reading and will be discussed next meeting.
