The Undergraduate Senate raced against the clock Tuesday night, setting out to finish its weekly two-hour meeting in half that time, so its members could attend the tail-end of the Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford (SUES) student town hall, which was held concurrently in Toyon Lounge. Committee updates and a discussion of three bills that the Senate will vote on next week were the main order of business.
During the meeting, Senator Daniel DeLong ’13 announced that two previously locked rooms on the second floor of the Nitery will soon be added to the ASSU reservation system. The news came last night when DeLong received a phone call from Jeanette Smith-Laws, director of operations and student unions, who informed him that the rooms had been cleaned and are ready for student use.
“I want to say this is a big win for the ASSU, a big win for the administration and, most importantly, a big win for Stanford students,” he said.
Smith-Laws was originally slated to field questions about the Nitery issue at Tuesday night’s meeting, but the Senate decided to postpone her appearance because of the shortened meeting time. She will be added to next week’s agenda.
Senator Alon Elhanan ’14 then asked DeLong about the two other rooms that remained locked in the Nitery.
“We’re looking further into it,” DeLong said. “From my understanding, those two rooms are going to be used essentially for sexual assault counselors.”
Senator Brianna Pang ’13 clarified that this is just a proposal for the rooms.
ASSU Vice President Stewart Macgregor-Dennis ’13 then said he met with Greg Boardman, vice provost of student affairs, yesterday during lunch to discuss the remaining locked rooms. During their conversation, they came to the conclusion that the ASSU could decide how the space should be used up to end of the quarter, but that they would also establish a working group — one that included members of both the administration and the ASSU — to draft a proposal that would determine its long-term purpose, Macgregor-Dennis said.
“Apparently, Boardman has the final say,” he said. “If we go ahead with this plan, where the Senate and the ASSU as a whole puts together a proposal…and follows certain steps, then he’s prepared — even this quarter — to publicly state that the Nitery will then take that direction.”
Macgregor-Dennis finished by saying that the sexual assault counselor will arrive on campus in two weeks and that it might be in the Senate’s best interest to let the University use the rooms as a counseling space for the remainder of the quarter.
The conversation then turned to three bills that will be voted on next week: one that would allow the ASSU to release the names and SUID numbers of students who are requesting refunds for special fees, another would create a publicly accessible list of projects that the senators and Senate committees are working on and a piece of legislation that would create the Undergraduate Senate Campaign Financing Fund. This latter fund would provide up to $100 to low-income students to run in Senate elections.
“I’m really upset — not really upset, but sad — that we don’t have time to talk about this right now,” said Elhanan, who authored the last bill. “This is a really important bill, something I’ve been working on for a long-time and it’s not something we can just talk about in a second.”
Senator Janani Ramachandran ’14 then asked whether the Senate would better use its time discussing the three bills, since there was only one hour left of the SUES town hall.
Senator Brianna Pang ’13 responded by saying that they would be missing the question and answer session and, therefore, lose out on hearing student opinions. Senate Chair Rafael Vasquez ’12 asked if they wanted to take a straw poll to decide whether or not they should extend the meeting, but prior to the vote, senators started packing up their laptops and backpacks, and the meeting came to its close.
Earlier in the evening, all funding bills were passed.