A plan to use mandatory fees from current students for need-based scholarships for incoming students is in motion after its introduction at March 5, 2019 ASUW meeting.
If passed, Senate Bill 2651 will pull $30,000 from ASUW’s reserve fund to be awarded as scholarships of $2,000 each to 15 first-year University of Wyoming students over three years. The ASUW Budget and Planning Committee would also be tasked with finding an alternative, permanent source of funding for the scholarships following those three years.
Senator Dusten Strock of the College of the Education said the scholarship is intended to assist community-engaged students afford their cost of education. In addition to demonstrating financial need, applicants would need to submit a statement detailing how the funds would affect them, a “community involvement” resume and an essay about how to “strengthen community” at UW.
“It would help draw more high-quality students to campus,” Strock said. “If they get involved and engaged on campus to a higher degree than they may be able to without the scholarship, that, I believe, is a huge benefit to campus and the student body.”
The student government currently sponsors six scholarships that are available to the general student body, including the ASUW Service-Learning Exchange Scholarship and the Chinese Ambassador’s Wyoming Scholar program. These scholarships were also initially funded through student fees and are now endowed with consistent funding from other sources.
Strock will be available to speak about the bill and answer questions about it at tonight’s ASUW listening session at 7 p.m. in the Union Senate Chamber. Listening sessions are held every Thursday evening to give students and other members of the UW community the opportunity to speak with student senators directly about legislation before senators consider it at their next full meeting.
In other business, senators introduced a bill to expand responsibilities of student senators to include training related to sexual misconduct. ASUW Vice President Jason Wilkins authored the bill in response to the release of data from last year’s sexual misconduct climate survey to provide student senators with an increased awareness and understanding of the issue and be better able to aid the student body.
“We shouldn’t be like ‘Oh, we’re equal with the national average, that’s good,’” Wilkins said. “We should aspire to be lower than that.”
Chief of Legislative Affairs Nicole Sanders said the training would hopefully lead to further action by student senators, in and out of the Senate Chamber.
“As student leaders, they set the example for the rest of the student body,” Sanders said. “If they work hard to advocate for changes regarding sexual assault on campus, they will hopefully inspire those around them to be just as passionate for change.”
ASUW is continuing to seek alternative progress to improve conditions for student tenants after the Laramie City Council failed to pass a resolution to investigate and propose standards for Laramie’s rental housing market. Student government officials plan to meet with Councilor Jayne Pearce today and are making plans to meet with property owners who expressed an interest in collaborating with ASUW.
“We’re looking forward to doing that so that hopefully we can find a middle ground, a compromise, so that Laramie’s just better off in general,” ASUW President Alex Mulhall said.
In the meantime ASUW continues to seek input from students about their experience as renters and changes they may hope to see in the circumstances that renters face.
The final information session for students hoping to run for positions in the ASUW student government will be Monday in the Union Family Room from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Coffee and doughnuts will be provided, along with answers to questions applicants may have about the process and ASUW. Final applications must be submitted by 4:30 p.m. March 14.
