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Senate Action
What's Senate been up to this year? Here are a
couple of highlights of the things that we've been working on, and
things that we've accomplished:
Breathalyzers
UPDATED 11/18/07
The Senator from Residence Hall Council (RHC) informed Senate
at the September 30 meeting that the Policy Committee of RHC was
exploring ways to simplify the alcohol policy. Because there is
currently no way of distinguishing who may have been drinking in a room
when alcohol is found, all underage students who were present during a
violation usually get sanctioned. In an effort to keep this from
happening, RHC's Senator recommended that a policy which would allow
breathalyzers to be administered to underage students who were found in
a room where alcohol was being consumed.
Damon Sloan, the Director of Residence Life, and Cindy
Birdwell, the Director of Public Safety, attended the Senate meeting on
Sunday, October 7 to discuss what a policy including breathalyzers could
look like and to answer any questions students had.
UPDATE:
At the November 18 meeting, a draft of a policy was
distributed to the Senators. That draft can be found
here. Cindy Birdwell,
Director of Public Safety, will be attending the Senate meeting on
December 2 at 7:00 pm in Ledwidge Ballroom to discuss the proposed
policy with the Senators and students further. All are welcome to
come and share their thoughts. In addition, there is a discussion
board on the Senate's Facebook group. All are welcome to post
thoughts there, as well.
State of the University Address
Sr. Peg Albert, President of Siena Heights University, came
to the Student Senate meeting on October 21, 2007, to give a State of
the University Address. A summary can be found
here. At the State of the
University Address, Sr. Peg talked about her vision statement for the
university, and is asking for input. You can find the vision
statement here. Bring any comments
that you have to any Senate meeting, or e-mail them directly to Sr. Peg,
at palbert@sienaheights.edu.
Library Hours
On October 7, 2007, Student Senate passed a resolution
recommending that the Library Hours be extended so that it would close
at 11:00 pm instead of at 9:00 pm (the resolution can be found
here). Just over a week later, on
Monday, October 15, 2007, the library hours were extended so that it
would close at 11:00 pm on Sunday through Wednesday nights.
Smoking Policy
The University's smoking policy was under review at the
beginning of the school year. You can find the details of the
proposed policy here. The
proposal establishes a target date for the campus to go completely smoke
free at August 1, 2008. The Student Senate discussed the issue at
its September 16 meeting, where no student present felt that going smoke
free was a good idea. The policy remains under review, and any
input that students have on this can be taken to Senate on Sundays or
e-mailed to ssenate@gmail.com.
C-Store
The C-Store was moved to Benincasa on Mondays, Tuesdays, and
Wednesdays at the start of the school year. This caused an
inconvenience to students due to the more out-of-the-way location and
smaller selection. After the Senate discussed the issue and came
to a consensus that it would be better in the C-Store every day, the
C-Store was moved back to its original location in Archangelus Hall
permanently.
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