SMU Student Senate called into question the campus’ attitude towards diversity during their meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Senator Kimberly Elmazi updated her fellow Senators on her efforts to publicize SMU’s Diversity Week.

Elmazi said she had posted information about the event on several student organizations’ Facebook pages.

A member of one unnamed Greek organization replied to the post on his or her chapter’s wall, asking, “is this an April Fool’s joke?”

This comment offended Elmazi, who has been working to get the entire campus involved with Diversity Week.

“Regardless of your affiliation, it is a positive thing that’s meant to build community,” Elmazi said.

Senator Ramon Trespalacios responded to the incident.

“If we take this opportunity to change negative opinions to positive ones, that’s even more meaningful,” Trespalacios said.

Student Senate will be hosting their first Lawn Talk on March 27 on Dallas Hall Lawn.

The Lawn Talk is meant to serve as a proactive forum for discussion about campus issues, such as discrimination and
sexual assault.

Student Concerns Committee Chair Christos Patelis has already reached out to leaders of many student organizations so they can help develop framing questions for the event.

“This is somewhere we can really change our university for the better,” Patelis said.

Preparations for the opening of the George W. Bush library continued with the launch of Student Senate’s 100 Letters campaign. This campaign seeks to gather 100 student-written letters of thanks and welcome for the Bush family, who will present at the library’s opening.

An email with more information will be sent to students soon, but the deadline is already approaching.

Letters need to be submitted before Spring Break so the selection committee can choose which ones will ultimately be presented to the Bushes.

For now, students can submit their letters to [email protected].

Finally, Senator Emily McIntosh introduced a new piece of legislation, which seeks to help students who frequently fall prey to campus parking rules.

Currently, Park N’ Pony will place boots on cars that have received more than six parking tickets during the year, without any prior warning.

McIntosh hopes to change this rule by having Park N’ Pony give a warning to students who are close to receiving the boot or basing the boot system off a student’s number of outstanding tickets.

Student Senate will continue discussion of this bill and come to a resolution during next week’s meeting at 3:30 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Forum.