At its Tuesday meeting, the Student Assembly discussed the Administration, College and Town Act. If passed, the bill would create a new procedure for SA meetings, although Senate bylaws would remain unchanged.
The ACT Act seeks to address campus life issues through College of William and Mary policy, City of Williamsburg issues and student organizations.
On the first and third Tuesdays of each month, leaders of student organizations would deliver five to 10-minute addresses to the Senate regarding their views of the campus community.
The second Tuesday of the month would be devoted to College administrators and the fourth Tuesday to Williamsburg city officials.
“It’s something Sen. Matt Beato [’09] discussed in previous years,” Sen. Betty Jeanne Manning ’12 said.
The ACT Act will be discussed further in next week’s meeting.
The SA also addressed the Exam Taxi Service Act III, a bill that would allocate funding to provide a taxi service for students during final exams.
“Students are studying especially late, and we don’t want them walking home in the wee hours of the morning,” Sen. Brittany Fallon ’11 said.
There is no public transportation available between midnight and 7 a.m., Sundays through Thursdays.
If passed, the bill would allocate up to $2,600 from the consolidated reserve to provide taxis for students during both the fall and spring semester exam periods of the 2009-2010 academic year.
Fallon said the SA will examine the results from last year’s Exam Taxi Service Act to find out methods have been used in the past before discussing it further.
Sen. Stef Felitto ’12 also discussed the Gender Blind Housing Option Support Act.
“The [SA Department of Diversity Initiatives] … presented a really comprehensive proposal for a gender blind housing option,” Felitto said. “This bill just expresses our support of such an option.”
A more in-depth discussion of the bill will occur during next week’s Senate meeting.
The Bicycle Theft Prevention Act, which would allocate up to $800 from the consolidated reserve to purchase 50 bicycle locks approved by the William and Mary Police Department, was also discussed at
Tuesday’s meeting.
According to campus police, at least 10 bikes are stolen each week; only half are ever returned.
The bill stated that campus police spend countless man hours and other resources looking for stolen bicycles, taking up time that could be spent protecting students.
In past and passed legislation, senators deemed the Continued Seasonal Influenza Prevention Act, which provided 125 free flu shots to both undergraduate and graduate students at the College last Thursday and Friday, to be a success.
“It went really well,” Sen. Imad Matini ’11 said. “They sold out of the shots in both days within the first hour.
We’ve helped vaccinate over 1,100 students.”
The Virginia Gazette Act, passed last week, was also discussed.
The bill provides 300 copies of the Virginia Gazette for student use every Saturday for the remainder of the academic year.
The SA helped sponsor Friday’s Fall Spooktacular and Tuesday’s Election Day concert and considered both to be very successful.