On Oct. 28, there was one person who led the seventh session of the Student Government Association’s Senate: “Despicable Me” supervillain Vector.
In light of Halloween approaching, the undergraduate student senators ditched their usual business attire and put on playful costumes to kick off the weekend. Some characters in attendance included Jim Halpert, Adam Sandler, Indiana Jones and Ted Lasso.
This meeting featured the proposal of two resolutions and the passing of a bill introduced in the previous session.
First Readings: Academic accommodations and sustainability education
Last semester, Sen. Alli Conkle experienced having her academic accommodations denied by a professor. This incident motivated her to address the situation and advocate for student academic accommodations to be honored.
Resolution 25-1, the SDS Accommodation Awareness Resolution, sponsored by Conkle and Student Disability Services calls upon the Office of the Provost to amend the university’s campus-wide syllabus to include a statement that acknowledges SDS and the role it plays in arranging academic accommodations. The proposed amendments will also provide students with resources to assist them if their accommodations are not met.
“With this resolution, I wanted to include more information in the syllabus about [academic accommodations],” Conkle said. “And the dean of students is working legally to make sure that professors can’t say no to or not address [academic accommodations].”
As the University of Tennessee continues to make efforts in sustainability on campus, Sen. Annika Amaral saw an opportunity to support these efforts done by organizations such as the UT Composting Facility starting in classrooms.
Amaral sponsored Resolution 25-2, the Sustainability Education Act, which asks that the university expand sustainability education through adding to the curriculum for First Year Studies and Transitioning on Rocky Top. One of the things that students will learn during this instruction is how to sort between recycling, composting and the landfill. This resolution is in addition to another sustainability centered one that Amaral is currently working on.
“The composting bins that [UT Composting Facility] already have in Southern Kitchen get so much non-compost in them,” Amaral said. “I was like ‘Why don’t I make a second resolution to educate the student body so that they know what is properly compostable and that we can just eliminate that problem for UT Composting.’”
Both resolutions were passed and will begin lobbying.
Second Readings: Student safety
Bill 25-1, the Encouragement of Safety Act, introduced on Oct. 14 by Sen. Jonathan Martinez and Kevin Ho was revisited during second readings. During this time, amendments proposed by the Access and Engagement Committee were introduced and discussed.
Bill 25-1, which is the first bill to be passed this semester, passed with a vote of 90% in favor.
