The practical and ethical considerations of scholarships for ASUW senators and the results of last year’s campus climate sexual assault awareness survey were the chief topics of Tuesday’s student government session.
Initially authored by ASUW President Alex Mulhall, Senate Bill 2647 was intended to bolster recruitment and retention of ASUW senators through scholarships awarded from ASUW reserves to highly engaged senators, as well as to ease the burden of the time commitment for students who may have additional demands on their time or higher expenses. The final version of the bill passed with a vote of 18-2, with two senators abstaining, after lengthy debate about the merits of such scholarships and concerns of accountability.
Among the changes made to the bill was the removal of lower tiers of rewards for hitting certain milestones of engagement, resulting in a higher bar of effort for senators to earn up to $350 during a semester.
“I actually totally agreed with that amendment. I’m happy that it passed,” Mulhall said.
Other concerns focused on the ethics of senators who have an established presence in their colleges and a high chance of being re-elected casting votes that would result in additional payoffs.
“It’s certainly a tricky position for people to be in, when we’re allocating money to ourselves, in a sense,” Mulhall said. “The scholarship is an important tool for ASUW, and I think it’s important to reward the people who go out of their way and take the time to represent the students here. And it’s money toward school, which provides a benefit to them and helps them provide a further benefit to students.”
In other business, Mulhall and other ASUW officials made an impromptu visit to the Wyoming legislature to lobby for UW students as state representatives considered House Bill 293, which would greenlight plans for the construction of new housing on the UW campus.
“We went over to talk to some legislators — make sure that they know this is a priority to students,” Mulhall said. “If we’re wanting to truly grow our recruitment, as outlined by our strategic plan, it’s vital that we start getting some housing actually in the works.”
The bill is still moving through the state legislature. Currently, two older residence halls, Hill and Crane, are closed down pending future decisions for the buildings, while previously vacant upper floors in other residence halls have been taking on the load of on-campus student residents.
Elsewhere on the agenda, Professor of Psychology Matt Grey presented results of last year’s Sexual Misconduct Climate Survey, administered to UW students during the 2018 spring semester, and discussed solutions to problems seen in the data gathered.
Grey highlighted the survey’s importance by addressing the view held by “every institution” that sexual violence is “a major problem elsewhere, but not at home.” The 2018 survey went more to the heart of the issue by going directly to students to assess otherwise unreported views, which are not included in many major reports.
“Nationally, as well as locally, the great majority of survivors do not report to people who are required to feed into these kind of statistics,” Grey said.
A gradually declining trend of universities reporting zero incidents of rape and sexual assault (in 2014, 91 percent of universities reported such) raised some eyebrows.
“That would be great if those were real numbers,” Grey said. “Universities are misperceiving that they have minimal problems.”
The full results, with response data from about 2,000 UW students, are available for viewing on UW’s website.
A single RSO funding request was made during the meeting, with just under $9,000 awarded to the Central Asian Students Association for their upcoming event, Central Asian Awareness Day and New Year Celebration, planned for April 20.
