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The Eastern Echo Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024 | Print Archive
The Eastern Echo

Student Government roundup, Nov. 11

Student Senators volunteer for committees that oversee and handle Student Government’s business. These committees work with members of the executive board to handle the day-to-day function of the body as a whole.

The committees that meet on a biweekly basis are as follows:

  • Public affairs
  • Academic and student affairs
  • Business and finance
  • Internal affairs

Committee meetings Nov. 10

Public affairs:

Meeting minutes not provided.

Academic and student affairs:

Meeting cancelled.

Business and finance:

The Budget and Finance committee of Student Government has $39,496.76, or 78.99 percent of its allocated budget, remaining for student organizations and $30,025, or 60.05 percent, left for club sports allocations.

Student Government president Desmond Miller brought up the first order of business. Miller requested money to fund new water bottle filling stations, like those in the Student Center and McKenny Hall to encourage people to use their own reusable bottles rather than bottled water.

"What I want to do is make sure one of those are in each building on campus," said Miller. "Not all building[s] but high traffic areas."

Miller said he has yet to officially make this proposal. The water filling stations cost $1,000 to $2,000 each, and Miller said he does not want to pay more than $11,000 in total.

Miller backed his proposal with a study conducted by EMU's college of health & human services as well as a poll the student government conducted.

He plans to purchase up to five of these units with the Student Government reserve fund. Once water bottle filling stations are in use, he plans to make an argument to get the project funded by the university.

There were two groups present to request funds at the meeting.

The PRSSA requested $979.84 for an event they will be hosting. The board removed $90 from the proposal that was going to go toward gifts, which is not allowed under Student Government rules, and approved 5-0.

The second request from the women's club gymnastics team was for $3,936 to fund several trips for meets with teams in Ohio and the nationals. Their request was approved 4-0.

Internal affairs:

The committee’s first order of business was to discuss adding more water bottling systems, like the one in the Student Center and McKenny Hall, in more buildings on campus including King Hall, Starkweather, the Science Complex and the REC/IM.

Discussion included adding these to the already planned additions of new family bathroom renovations set to take place.

Since this would be a one-time purchase and Student Government has funding to cover the expected $1,500- $2,500 for each system in the reserves currently, the committee was all in favor to allocate money toward the project.

Senators do not have an access code to the Student Government Offices due to prior thefts and damages acquired. This is not out of the ordinary for the Campus Life Offices, as many organizations have multiple members, but only 5-8 members are allowed to have access to the offices.

The committee discussed codifying this in the Student Government Policies or potentially incorporating it as a by law. The committee debated about whether this is necessary.

Also discussed was Eastern potentially becoming tobacco-free. This is preferred over smoke-free as it is harder to shift from smoke-free to tobacco-free for students and staff, versus just going directly to tobacco-free. However, there have only been three reported violations of the current 25 ft. rule in the past years. Some members felt this was not a decision for Student Government to make. The ban will have no major enforcement, but will request all smoking students to only smoke on the border sidewalks of campus, not between campus buildings.

Executive initiatives:

Student Government President Desmond Miller will propose a resolution to the EMU Board of Regents to create a universal restroom in every building undergoing a renovation of $1 million or more. This initiative has been approved by the student leader group.

“The plans for this have been in place since 2007,” Miller said. “The next step is really putting pressure on the Board of Regents to take a stance on this and have a policy in place for this in their March meeting.”

Resolution to: Urge our Board of Regents to Terminate EMU’s contract with the Education Achievement Authority.

“We waited to see [how the numbers turned out]; we waited and saw they were not good,” Miller said. “The resolution is really being written because it is becoming increasingly hard for students coming out of the College of Education to get placed in school [as teachers].”