Undergraduate senators reflect on national election, plan resolution to expand transfer credit policies

Nov. 5, 2020, 11:04 p.m.

Stress and anxiety over the as-yet undetermined U.S. election filled the Zoom room at the Undergraduate Senate’s 11th meeting.

As of Thursday evening, neither former Vice President Joe Biden nor President Donald Trump has secured enough electoral college votes to declare victory.

Undergraduate senators also discussed a resolution to expand transfer credit policies, which they plan to vote on at their next weekly meeting.

“I’m pretty tired and fatigued in general, pretty anxious in general and we’re also in week eight,” Senate Chair Micheal Brown ’22 said, emphasizing that senators should keep the context of the election and pandemic in mind while creating goals for the rest of the year. “This moment … really matters,” Brown said.

Undergraduate Senate Parliamentarian Mia Bahr ’22 weighed in on President Trump’s press conference today, saying “it was just absolutely across the board discouraging in every single way possible.”

The Senate also discussed a resolution that would urge the University to modify some transfer credit policies. Authored by Glen Husman ’23, the proposed policy change would allow students to transfer up to 15 credits taken at other accredited institutions this year without those credits counting against the transfer credit limit.

“I’m always in favor of more flexibility for students and I think particularly for international students,” Senator Jonathan Lipman ’21 said. “This could be really big.” 

Senators said they plan to adopt the resolution next week.

Brown added that he plans to prioritize Senate organization moving forward, explaining that his goal is to ensure that different Undergraduate Senate files such as meeting minutes and recordings are more easily accessible and up to date.

Contact Sam Catania at samcat ‘at’ stanford.edu and Michaela Guo at mcguo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Sam Catania ’24 is the Volume 262 Editor in Chief of The Daily. Previously, he was Chief Technology Officer, the producer of the weekly video roundup, a news beat reporter covering COVID-19 on Stanford's campus and the assessment team leader of The Daily's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team. Sam hails from Philadelphia and is studying Symbolic Systems. You can follow him on Twitter @sbcatania. Contact him at scatania 'at' stanforddaily.comMichaela Guo is a staff writer in the News section. She is a freshman and plans to study Human Biology and Asian American studies. Contact her at mguo ‘at’ stanforddaily.com.

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