This week’s ASUW Senate meeting saw the president of the university speak, discussion on support for a Construction Management Degree, the removal of WyoVocal, changes to the judicial documents, Finance Policy and an upcoming referendum.
The session started with a presentation from President Laurie Nichols. She presented information on the change in tuition, the price of new students, the housing plan and a new marketing campaign.
Afterward, the Senate considered a proposed change to the working documents from the Judicial Council, Chief Justice JD Richardson. Previously, the rules and procedures were spread across three documents and at times they would contradict each other. The proposed change would create one document and it would codify an unofficial rule for the Judicial Council.
Richardson said that previously, the Judicial Council had an unofficial rule where they would not endorse any candidate. They wanted to codify it so that everyone knows that the Judicial Council is an apolitical part of the student government and that it will stay that way in the future. The Senate approved the changes unanimously.
The first piece of legislation talked about was Senate Resolution No. 2605: ASUW Support for Construction Management Degree Program. Originally, Senator Jordan Blazovich, from the college of health sciences, had some reservations on the resolution.
“I am still not convinced,” Blazovich said. “If the program is in the works and has been approved, it really seems like an unnecessary bill. If it was something where we needed to persuade somebody to create this program, then I would say yes.”
Senator Bridget DeLany, from the college of engineering, spoke in defense of the bill. She said that construction is an important facet of our society and is a large, necessary part of the Wyoming economy. Eventually, the Senate passed SR No. 2605 unanimously.
Next on the docket was Senate Bill 2609: Removal of WyoVocal. According to the bill, since WyoVocal was not included in next year’s budget and that it was not an effective tool, it should be removed. With no debate, the Senate unanimously passed SB No. 2609.
The third piece of legislation discussed was SB No. 2610: Changes to the Finance Policy Pertaining to Tangible Prizes. The original intent, according to the original bill, was to change the ASUW Finance Policy to allow RSOs to use funding to purchase prizes.
The Budget and Planning Committee produced a number of amendments that would change the bill so that it would create a rule that would completely ban RSOs from using funding from ASUW to buy tangible prizes. During a point of order, DeLany said that these should not be allowed as they changed the original purpose of the bill.
The chair, ASUW Vice President Jaynie Welsh ruled that it did not. She said that because the name of the bill said pertaining to tangible prizes, the amendments did not conflict with the bill. Before the amendments could be approved, the author of the bill, DeLany, withdrew the bill from consideration.
The final legislation to be voted on was SB No. 2611: Pronoun Revisions to the ASUW Constitution. According to the bill, this would create a referendum for the spring elections ballot that would change the pronouns used in the ASUW Constitution to gender neutral, if passed by the students.
Blazovich said he opposed this bill because there was a referendum last year and that it failed by a significant margin.
“This was put to a student vote last year and it had failed and maybe if it was a closer spread I would consider this,” Blazovich said. “Putting this forward to the students again, I don’t believe would make a difference.”
To provide more information on this topic, President of ASUW Ben Wetzel, provided the vote percentage from last year, he said it was 57.7% No and 42.3% Yes.
The representative from the United Multicultural Council, Dusten Strock, spoke in support of this bill, saying that if you don’t succeed at first, try again.
“It is an objective fact that students on this campus do not identify in the gender binary,” Strock said. “Every day that the ASUW Constitution contains the pronouns, he and she, is a day that students, that constituents on this campus, are not truly represented.”
On a vote of 21-1, the Senate passed SB 2611 and this referendum will be showing up on the ballot this spring.
