Student Senate goals broken down by each commission will soon be on display in the Senate office for the entire student body to see.
In a brief meeting to open the month of October, Vice President Patrick Martin said during his report that the Senate will be trying something new that will make legislative goals for the year a more visible event to everyone at UW-Eau Claire.
“We wanted Senate to … really commit to some of the ideals that have been put forward before,” Martin said. “We have tended to drop the ball (in the past) when it comes to making it really clear to students how we are working for them.”
The board on display will feature goals set by each commission, and Martin said they will cross off goals that have been met on each list as the semester progresses.
“This is a great way to keep our directors on task, a great way to see progress we are making, and it’s a great way for students to see how we are working for them,” Martin said.
Freshman Christina Thomsen thought the idea of putting up the board with Senate’s goals is a good idea, since it makes it easier for students to see what the senate is working on during the year.
Since Thomsen is new to campus, this would provide her and other students an opportunity to have a better understanding of what Senate is doing, she said, but she is unsure of how much the board will actually be used by students.
“It would be good to see what they’re coming up with,” Thomsen said. “I don’t know if people will actually use it; (although) I think they should.”
The board will be set up for anyone to view by the end of the week, if not sometime next week, Martin said.
Bills Passed
A bill setting the special reserve account balance for the 2012-2013 academic year was passed by voice vote on Monday.
The bill was introduced by Finance Commission director Bryan Larson in hopes of setting a more formalized cap on how much money will be used for special requests by organizations and activities.
“This year … we are setting a limit on how much money we want to spend the entire year on special allocations,” Larson said at the meeting.
Larson said the way they are planning to do this is to set the special reserve account — the account used for these special allocations of money — balance at $20,000. The goal is to not spend over that amount.
The $20,000 benchmark will be set through transferring $6,669 from the carryover account to the special reserve account.
Larson did stress that this bill did not put a concrete limit on what amount could actually be spent on special allocations.
“It is possible for us to increase this amount later,” Larson said during open discussion. “But for the time being this is where we are (setting) the bar for the academic year.”
The carryover account before the transfer had a balance of $53,331.
Bills Proposed
Frank Heaton, director of the Organizations Commission, proposed changes to the Student Organizations Handbook.
According to the proposed bill, the handbook “outlines that the Handbook should be reviewed every September” in order to make any appropriate changes.
Most of the changes were minor, Heaton said, adding there were some things taken out in order to simplify things for student organizations.
The Student Court, a body that was originally part of the appeals process, was taken out of the handbook as well. Instead of seeing the Student Court, organizations would instead see the entire Student Senate as that step in the appeals process.
“The reason is that we just don’t have a functioning Student Court,” Heaton said.
Heaton said organizations will not be missing out on any part of the appeal process due to these changes; the body that would be overseeing that part of the appeal will just be switched to Student Senate instead.
The proposed changes to the handbook will be voted on at the next Student Senate meeting.
