Student Government Association passed Senate Resolution 10 and introduced Senate Resolution 12 and Senate Bill 69. Several organizations also reported to SGA.
Senate Resolution 10 encourages the Faculty Senate, the faculty representative body for the university, to support a syllabus bank. Senator Caleb Weiland, the chair of Government Affairs, introduced the bill.
“This is just a good resolution in my opinion. We had a good discussion in Student Affairs about how the syllabus bank isn’t going to be perfect right away but if we have those open lines of communication with the Faculty Senate and the Provost Office that we can make this more suitable for our students,” Weiland said.
This meeting, SGA introduced Senate Resolution 12, A Resolution to Address Parking Ticket Fines On Campus. The resolution addresses confusion regarding parking, seeks to lower fines for parking violations and changes parking lot 24, a parking lot near North Complex. Senator Max Mickelson introduced the resolution.
“Myself, and several of my other freshman and peers recently had parking tickets and most of us were kind of confused as to why we received them and we definitely all thought that $30 is really a lot for a victimless parking violation,” Mickelson said. “Having a warning for first time violations would be really nice.”
Weiland, who supported the resolution, said he liked that the resolution would ask UPD to be more transparent and clear about parking policies and the parking policies need to be updated in general.
However, there was some opposition to the resolution as stands. Senator Caleb Swanson said it was important to remember that fines exist for a reason.
“Most of the people generally speaking at this university are adults or very close to being adults,” Swanson said. “Most of them have been driving for a while, they should understand the consequences of their actions.”
Director of Finance, Logan Johnson, brought up some more comments about the bill. Johnson said as a commuter, he did not support taking away commuters parking.
“The lot next to the medical school is now gone because the health sciences building is being built there and Julian has not been transformed into a nice parking lot. As such, commuter parking is already low,” Johnson said.
The resolution went back to committee until next week to address some of the issues brought up during the meeting and to consult UPD on the matter.
Senate Bill 69 was also introduced this week. The bill supplies Film International Enthusiast Relations funding for showing movies, however, concerns arose over the copywrite laws involving showing movies on campus for an audience.
John Howe, Associate Dean of Students, said the licensing fee for movies five years old or more is often $200 to $300, and the FIER budget would not cover these expenses. The bill was sent back to committee until next week to review and address these issues.
