WEB EXCLUSIVE: EC discusses new logo, other updates
The USU Student Association ran an exceptionally long meeting Tuesday, hearing Tier II tuition presentations and discussing new legislation. Amid everything else, a few big announcements were made.
– President Doug Fiefia announced the new USU/SA logo will be revealed by the end of the year. For the first time, Athletics approved the use of the bull on its logo.
“This is the first time they’ve let any organization use the bull,” Fiefia said. “They’ve said no to teams before.”
– The Collegiate Readership Program with USA Today was also brought up. Fiefia said the group didn’t discuss the topic much when they were presented with the issue.
The program would give students a free subscription to USA Today and two other newspapers the school chooses. Those papers would be placed around campus three days a week for students to read. The program does not come with an online subscription.
“I’ve talked to some students about it, and they’re in support,” said Daryn Frischknecht, Student Advocate vice president. “But they’re students who are more involved.”
Matt Anderson, Senate pro tempore and College of Humanities and Social Sciences senator, said most of the Academic Senate is against it. Two of the main reasons are to keep student fees down and that most students reading the news do so online.
The council voted not to add the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program to the USU campus.
– Fiefia also announced his office will aid the Programming Office for the end of year bash.
“I spoke with James Morales to see if we could get a bigger band,” Fiefia said. “We decided to help programming up to $20,000.”
According to a survey recently done by Thomas Rogers, Programming VP, the additional money gives his office a big enough budget to bring a “big-name band.”
– John Mortensen, assistant VP for Enrollment Services and Retention, announced two changes his office is considering.
Currently, a student can drop a class and receive a full refund and no mark on a transcript three weeks into the semester. After that point, a dropped class leaves a “W” on a transcript, and no refund is given.
But Mortensen’s concern is with students completely withdrawing. Whether part-time or full-time, there’s no punishment if a student drops all classes, except there’s no refund.
Up until the last day of class, a student can completely withdraw and only receive Ws on their transcript.
Mortensen wants to restrict the number of times a student can do that, especially if the student is already on academic probation.
“There’s a restriction that a student can do that a maximum of two times, putting a limitation on there,” he said. “And also if a student is on academic probation, if they do that, they’ll be suspended anyway. They can’t do that.”
Frishcknecht asked if the situation Mortensen described was common.
“It doesn’t happen too frequently,” he said. “It’s delaying the inevitable.”
– Mortensen also announced the Calendar Committee is considering changing the start dates for next fall.
He said students were supportive of possibly starting the fall semester on Wednesday and consequently, having Thursday off for fall break and Monday and Tuesday off during Thanksgiving break.
“I think this body last year said they were supportive of that possible calendar change,” Mortensen said.
– Another important announcement was the notification of a meeting for the new Student Recreation and Wellness Center.
Fiefia said students are invited and encouraged to give their opinion concerning the interior design of the building. The meeting is at 10 a.m. today in Facilities 114.
-daniellekmanley
Twitter: @daniellekmanley