Photo Courtesy of ASSOU
The ASSOU Senate met at 6 pm on November 4th to discuss different events and updates at Southern Oregon University.
The meeting started with updates of several events at SOU, like the Election Connection, which encouraged students to reflect and engage in the aftermath of the presidential election. ASSOU partnered with Student Life to present this series, which was presented over four days.
ASSOU President, Sarah Grulikowski, took the floor to detail proposals and plans she had been working on, such as meeting with students from different departments to improve the SOU Student Daily Health Screening Questionnaire. There has been low student compliance in completing the survey, and Grulikowski has been brainstorming ways to remind students to complete it, such as daily reminders. The President said she is considering creating seats for underrepresented students and meeting with other student body presidents in the state to discuss preventing cuts from higher education and ways to avoid COVID-19 on college campuses.
There were no new updates from Residence Hall Association (RHA), clubs, or OSPIRG; however, the Speaker of the House, Mya Ryan, mentioned that OSPIRG managed to get over 18,000 students to register to vote in this election. National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) stated that they collected canned goods from 30 different households for their Trick or Treat for Canned Goods fundraiser. After this, Andrew Zucker, the Legislative Justice, swore in ASSOU’s new Graduate Senator, Connor Hunt.
The senate also unanimously decided to table the Clubs and Organization Senate Seat appointment to next week since they don’t have any qualified candidates.
One of the significant decisions made tonight was a vote on SBF-1-20: Vacant Senator Appointment Revisal. This essentially changes the bylaws’ wording to include all senators in the next election of new senators, since ASSOU added three new senate positions: Graduate Senator, Undergraduate Senator, and Non-Traditional Senator. This was passed 8-0-2.
The few announcements of the night were that NRHH is hiring, and the Clubs and Organization Senate Seat application will be open. After this, the meeting was adjourned at 6:31 pm.