Senators continued their ongoing conversations about the controversial new alcohol policy and began to address pressing housing and academic questions posed by the pandemic in Tuesday’s business-as-usual Undergraduate Senate meeting. 

Although the proposed Ubuntu bill was poised to move forward with a vote, the Senate held off on finalizing the bill until all senators could be present to deliberate. The bill, proposed by Senator Joshua Jankelow ’24, is meant to expedite the process through which student groups and representatives can get face time with members of the Undergraduate Senate. The Senate is slated to move forward with the bill during its meeting next Tuesday. 

Senate Chair Alain Pérez ’23 was also hopeful that representatives from the Department of Student Affairs would be in attendance to discuss the rationale behind the new alcohol policy and hear senators’ concerns at next week’s meeting. 

Senator Jaden Morgan ’24 spoke to begin the process of presenting the Faculty Senate with a motion to standardize hybrid-learning options across classes, an idea that was warmly received by his fellow senators. 

Given the uneven variations between in-person, partially recorded and entirely online course offerings this fall, Morgan noted that a student who had to self-isolate faced potentially devastating academic repercussions if their classes were unable to accommodate distanced learning. A student-led petition campaign advocating for guaranteed remote learning options has garnered 270 signatures of support since the beginning of the school year. The Senate hopes to move forward with such a proposal in the coming weeks. 

The Senate additionally reviewed and unanimously approved funding requests from student groups across campus for a variety of workshops and events. They also unanimously voted to confirm the nomination of DeAndre Johnson ’24 to the ASSU Constitutional Council. 

“I’m very interested in policy, and the implications that a decision can have for students in the years to come,” Johnson said. “I’m excited to explore what that work looks like in practice.”