Student Senate officially began its year with its first meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The meeting, brought to order at 3:32p.m., included student senators as well as the executive staff.
SMU Police Chief of Staff, Richard Shafer, joined the meeting and addressed the student body on the recent sexual assault crime alert that rocked campus.
As reported, the crime happened in the Law Quad near Carr Collins. According to Schafer, SMU Police are being aided by the Dallas Police Department as well as DART Police in their attempt to find the criminal.
Other items on the agenda included SMU student, Alex Taylor, who addressed the Student body regarding an “unfair” grading system within Cox School of business.
“Professors are required by their administrators to have an average,” Taylor said. “So they move students grades to fit the average and this concerns me.”
After Taylor’s remarks, President Alex Mace proceeded with the welcome and updates. One recurring issue is the student body’s reluctance to choose attending a football game over Boulevarding.
Mace said that he is working with university officials to look at ways to get students from the Boulevard into the games.
Mace also announced a new program aimed at freshmen who wish to participate in Student Senate but do not always have an avenue to do so.
The new program will introduce two to three pages to the Senate, whose duties include preparing the agenda, keeping the office organized and making copies. The program is designed to allow freshmen and sophomores to build relationships with upper-class senators.
The applications for the pages are up on the Student Senate website and students are encouraged to apply. In other Student Senate news, Senate committees are planning meetings within the week.
The finance committee is planning on meeting next Thursday.
It was announced that they were unable to meet this week because Senators are not yet aware of their committee assignments.
Vice President Zane Cavender assured the student body that the meeting will take place as soon as possible.
New legislation was announced to commemorate Geoffrey Orsak, the former dean of Lyle School of Engineering, who is now at the University of Tulsa.
Orsak is known by students to have done great things for the school as well as the university as a whole.
The Scholarship Committee addressed the issue of the application section of the student senate website which is known to cause a lot of confusion for users.
It is is currently testing out a new website that will allow users to more effectively utilize the website.
The meeting concluded with Senator John Mafferty’s introduction of the issue of campus offices sending out large e-mails that reveal the addresses of all the recipients.
Mafferty is currently looking at ways to provide privacy for Webmail recipients within the SMU network.
Senate looks forward to a productive year as it pushes promised legislation and policy from last year’s election cycle.
