Miami University's Associated Student Government (ASG) discussed amendments to its bylaws regarding the powers and duties of the Secretary for On-Campus Affairs at its meeting Tuesday.
Senator Cole Tyman made a motion to strike an article from the bylaws, which states that any legislation regarding residential life must be approved by the General Assembly before being presented in front of the Senate.
"The Residence Hall Association (RHA) is a separate body from the Senate," Tyman said. "Whatever decisions we make within our body shouldn't need approval or disapproval from [RHA]."
He was met with a rebuttal from Senator Peter Dougherty, who proposed to keep the article Bylaws.
"We need to maintain ties with RHA. Instead of striking [the article], we may consider rewording it," Dougherty said.
"We should strike it altogether," secretary for public relations John Stefanski said. "There are other Articles in the Bylaws that will keep RHA ties. When it comes to Senate business and our democratic rights as members, we should vote in favor of maintaining those rights."
Ultimately, ASG voted 35-2 to strike the article from its bylaws, and the bill recommending the division of the RHA President and Secretary for On-Campus Affairs Job Responsibilities passed unanimously.
Student Body President Nick Huber presented a resolution that advocates formal consideration and design of a required first-year seminar. This resolution would support the Office of New Student Programs in developing programming and curriculum based modules that would serve as transitioning tools for incoming first year students.
"This would help students in the college transition and allow them to know all of Miami's resources that are available to them," Huber said. "Most students don't find out about the academic or career services until it's crunch time. This would make sure they are aware of their resources and can use them throughout their entire college process."
The first year seminar course would be required regardless of a student's Living Learning Community (LLC), and would be one credit hour. This, potentially, could raise graduation requirement hours from the current 128 needed to graduate from the university, to 129.
"Though these changes would be implemented along with the changed to the Miami Plan, so the curricular transition would smooth," Huber said.
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Senate will vote next week on the resolution.
Vice President for Student Organizations Meghan Wadsworth presented the final numbers from Cycle 2 funding. Overall, 25 percent of cutbacks were made from given requests, and only two organizations, the Art and Architectural History Association and the Bird Watchers of Miami, were denied funding. Senate voted to approve the Final funding results for Cycle 2.
Campus Sustainability was also on the agenda at the ASG meeting.
David Prytherch, sustainability coordinator, presented ASG with the plans for improving issues such as parking, crosswalks and university metro routes on campus.
"We realize that these are the areas in which we need to improve, as the needs of students and faculty change," Prytherch said.
Prytherch outlined the potential changes, which included re-doing the campus's crosswalk system in response to the numerous accidents that have happened at the university's intersections.
"We're hoping to create a system that will lessen vehicular and pedestrian conflict," Prytherch said.
Expanding upon parking on the university and potentially adding more and renaming the university's Metro routes were also on the agenda.
"We just hope to optimize campus mobility and have multiple modes of transpiration available for our growing population and needs," Prytherch said.
Another presentation given to ASG came from sophomore Jordan Habel, who wanted ASG's support in a movement he hopes to bring to the university called Feed My Starving Children. The Christian-based organization is a non-profit group that provides nutritional meals to children in over 60 countries who suffer wwwfrom malnutrition.
"We are really looking to get those interested in donating time and resources to help. Our goal is to raise $24,000 and have at least 500 volunteers pack 100,000 meals," Habel said.
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