The College of William and Mary’s Student Assembly held its first meeting of the spring semester Tuesday.
Senators discussed numerous pieces of upcoming legislation, several of which were brought to a vote.
The 2010 Richmond Road Funding Act, which covers the costs of transporting students to and from the Road to Richmond event Tuesday, was unanimously passed.
“In the past, the president’s office has funded the bus for Road to Richmond, but this year they’re hurting,”
Sen. Erik Houser ’10 said. “I thought that it would be a good idea if we were willing to show that we’re willing to invest our own money.”
The annual event allows students to interact with legislators and lobby on behalf of the College.
A bill urging the Honor Council to hold another information session next week also came to a debate, though it was not passed.
Some SA members worried that the sessions, which are mandatory for any student interested in running for
Honor Council, were not publicized early enough. However, a majority felt that interested students were sufficiently aware of the sessions.
Several new bills were introduced for consideration.
A bill to keep Alan B. Miller Hall open to non-business majors at all hours was placed on the agenda to be discussed at upcoming meetings.
Currently, all students at the College pay an annual $150 facility fee for Miller Hall. However, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Monday through Friday and 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Saturday and Sunday the building is closed to students who are not enrolled in business classes.
A Facebook group in support of equal student access to Miller Hall 1,056 members as of press time.
The Help Haiti Now Act would allocate approximately $1,000 from the SA’s consolidated reserve to make t-shirts in support of Haiti relief efforts.
All profits will be given to the University of Fondwa, Haiti’s only university that offers degrees.
The Get With the Times Act would allocate up to $6,250 from the SA’s consolidated reserve to bring 200
issues of The New York Times to campus each day to be distributed at the Sadler Center and the Commons.
“We’ll be talking about … the logistics of distribution this week,” Sen. Betty Jeanne Manning ’12 said.
A potential bill to change the campus-wide ban on chalked messages, as well as the imposed free speech zones during SA elections, was also introduced.
Further, the Consolidated Reserve Interest Act would redirect interest accumulated on student activities fees into an account that would fund student initiatives.
The interest is currently kept in an account managed by the Board of Visitors.
The amount of interest has averaged $9,100 in the last five years.
The College Board of Elections Act would standardize student elections through Blackboard Academic Suite.
Sen. Ben Brown ’11 said that the current system worked well for the last student elections, but noted that some students did not receive the notification e-mail on time and that there were problems with the randomly generated passwords.
“We can have students log in through Blackboard, it just costs more money,” he said.
The SA meets 7 p.m. Tuesdays in Miller 1027.