ASUSU votes to dissolve grad senate
The ASUSU Executive Council voted to disband the Graduate Student Senate and briefly discussed the possibility of an on-campus car rental agency at its meeting Tuesday, Jan. 31.
Currently, graduate students are represented in a legislative body separate from their undergraduate counterparts. Under the new legislation, academic senators will represent both undergraduate and graduate students from their respective colleges. The new bill also states that the current position of Graduate Student Senate president will be transferred to the Academic Senate under the title of graduate student senator.
“We’re not eliminating any representation,” said Graduate Student Vice President Cami Jones. “We’re just shifting representation.”
The senatorial reconstruction came in response to a “consistent lack of interest in the Graduate Student Senate,” Jones said. She said senate hopefuls frequently run unopposed, and positions have been appointed in the past due to lack of candidate interest.
ASUSU Public Relations Director Hannah Blackburn said the new system will be more streamlined, because, in the past, undergraduate and graduate students were performing the same duties.
Both undergraduate or graduate students are able to apply for academic senate positions, Jones said.
Jones said the bill passed with a two-thirds majority in the Graduate Student Senate, but there was some concern that in a combined system, academic senators would devote more attention to undergraduate affairs.
In the past, undergraduate senators havn’t had to worry about graduate affairs because of the existence of the graduate senate, Jones said. There are no foreseeable cases in which unfair amounts of attention will be given to undergraduates, she added.
To help manage both undergraduate and graduate affairs, senators will appoint council presidents, said Tanner Wright, ASUSU Academic Senate president. These council presidents will be compensated with stipends, he said. Their positions will not lead to any kind of fee increase; rather, the funding formerly used to fund the Graduate Student Senate will be used, Jones said.
Jones said she wanted to emphasize that senatorial reconstruction will in no way affect the amount of funding available to graduate students.
The possibility of an on-campus car rental agency was also discussed at the meeting.
A small number of cars might be available for student rental by next fall semester, said ASUSU President Erik Mikkelsen. If the proposal is completed, students will be able to rent cars for about $7 to $10 an hour he said.
“The cars could be used for grocery shopping, going on a date and other excursions,” Mikkelsen said.
Mikkelsen said the USU car-sharing program is still in its infancy, so he is unsure if there will be restrictions based on age or other factors. He said there would be no student-fee increase associated with the program, but the program would fund itself. Essentially, the university would give a car rental agency permission to set up the program on campus and the rental agency would be responsible for its own operating costs, he said.
The program would be similar to car-sharing programs already in existence at the University of Utah, BYU, Westminister and several Idaho universities, he said.
– rouchellebrockman@gmail.usu.edu