They are called collaboration pods — computer monitors mounted on tables that can connect to laptops — and they’re here to stay.
Student Senate voted 25-0-1 at its meeting Monday to spend $20,000 on permanent pods in McIntire Library.

 
Senate Tech Commission set up the pods in the library in early October. Christian Paese, tech commission director said the work stations have been popular with students.

 
Library staff tallied the number of students using pods since they were installed in early October. Tallies show more students are using the pods, although Paese said the test is “very unscientific.”

 
“It’s a worthwhile endeavor,” Paese said. “We’ve done our due diligence. There’s nothing worse than spending money and not seeing students using them.”

 
Robert Fisher and John Fisher, Eau Claire computer science majors and twin brothers, sat at a pod on Dec. 1 with notebooks and textbooks open, backlit by an unused pod screen.

 
Robert Fisher said he and his brother do most of their work in Phillips Hall because their classes require them to use computer programs that aren’t offered on library computers. Social science students might use the pods more, he said.

 
“We don’t need to spend more of my money on this,”  Robert Fisher said. “If the monitor was connected to an actual computer I would view that as a better investment. We can do a little better.”

 
John Fisher said he’d like to see the monitors hooked up to computers instead of expecting students to bring a device. He will scope out an open big screen computer before logging on to a pod, he said.

 
Senate plans to pay for the pods with money left in a student tech fee carryover account. Each student pays the tech fee, which is about 2 percent of tuition.

In Other Senate News
Senate top brass won’t be required to take as many lobbying trips to Madison following a bylaw change Monday.

 
Former bylaws required Student Body President, Vice President, Chief of Staff and the Intergovernmental Affairs  Director to meet with state lawmakers three times per semester. But changes passed Monday will only require top executives to make the trip twice a year.

 
“If there is one semester where there isn’t much we need to do on a state level, making those trips would have been distracting to our other efforts,” IGA director Jacob Wrasse said.

 
Last year’s Senate body changed bylaws to mandate leaders meet with state lawmakers three times a semester.

 
“Advocacy down in Madison is one of the things I was most proud of last year, however I am really in support of this amendment because we need to have some very basic benchmarks to leave behind,” Student Body President Bryan Larson said.

 
Larson said leaders will visit lawmakers in Madison in about a month with Chippewa Valley Rally, an event put on by the Eau Claire Chamber
of Commerce.