The fourth meeting of the Student Senate began at 6:05 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 19 in the Dakota Ballroom at Davies Student Center. The meeting included the passage of a bill to create a commission director for Student Housing, as well as a resolution to push UW-Eau Claire administration to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day. 

The body passed a resolution calling on the university’s administration to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a holiday. Each session of the Student Senate begins by recognizing the land the university lies on is land which used to belong to the Ojibwe and Dakota Nations. The resolution passed unanimously, besides President Anna Ziebell and Vice President Joe Murphy, who abstained.

Senator Brett Swanson, a third-year information systems student and director of the Information Technology Commission, said this was a way to formalize the recognition of the holiday.

“While they [the administration] already support the holiday this is a way to get them to formalize the recognition of the holiday,” Swanson said. 

64B-1 is the bill to create a “Housing Coordinator” position starting in the 2021-2022 academic year. This coordinator will handle issues related to both on and off-campus housing. With 26 senators voting for the bill, zero voting against and two voting to abstain — these being the president and vice president — the bill passed. 

“The housing coordinator is a single position who will begin work in July,” Lucy Chapman, a fourth-year accounting student and chief of staff of Student Senate, said.

Franny Donovan, a fourth-year kinesiology student, authored the bill last year, according to Chapman.  

Kristof can be reached at [email protected].