Senate
discusses accountability, health fees
Gerry
Wachovsky
On-line Forty-Niner
Senator
Morgan Wheeler advocated the importance
of the Senate being accountable for its
actions and decisions at yesterday's Senate
meeting.
Wheeler
proposed several bylaw amendments that would
affect the Senate but one particular addition
stood out and came with a great deal of
discussion from the Senators. According
to Wheeler, the addition he added would
"put into legislation what [the Senate
does] and holds [the Senators] accountable
for it."
Specifically,
the new line in the A.S. bylaws would grant
the Senate power to "Exercise all authority
and duties pertaining to its role as a legislative
body and Board of Directors," a very
important concept, Wheeler said. "This
was added to solidify and clarify, within
the A.S. bylaws, the role of Senate as a
legislative body and a board of directors,
which encompasses subsequent professional
and legal roles, responsibilities and expectations,"
according to the list of changes Wheeler
made to the bylaws.
The
A.S. Senate, many people may not know, is
essentially a board of directors of the
school, its shareholders being the approximate
35,000 students that are on campus and its
money coming from students' tuition fees.
Wheeler added this simple yet tremendously
important phrase to the bylaws to drive
home to the Senators the fact that they
are making rules that are affecting every
student here in some way or another.
"It
is important to define powers and duties,"
Wheeler said, also noting that putting these
rules specifically into the bylaws allows
for Senate accountability. The addition
was met with much support from the senators,
but they agreed to further discuss the issue
at a future convening.
In
other news, A.S. Treasurer Mike Johnson
spoke of the fee committee's decision to
approve the increase in fee students will
pay to use the campus Health Center. Despite
the fact that this issue will be discussed
again at the first Senate meeting next semester,
many students simply cannot afford another
increased fee, especially in the wake of
the recent tuition hike. Harvey Morley suggested
several means of bringing this issue of
increasing student fees to a head, one of
which being a CSU-wide student walkout.
Morley said "it is not impossible [to
change things]," and also urged the
Senate to "make a mark for yourselves,"
mentioning such social activists as Cesar
Chavez, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther
King, Jr.
The
Student Health Center, it should be noted,
already offers medicine and medical needs
to students at an extremely reduced price.
Renee Twigg, director of the Health Center,
spoke to the Senate two weeks ago and said
that because of the increasing size of the
student body, it is necessary to increase
student health center fees to continue offering
the same services students have been enjoying.
|
