SA Senate Calls for Increased Transparency in University’s Admissions Process

BY MCKINLEY KANT

The Student Association Senate met Monday evening in the Grand Ballroom of the Marvin Center to pass a resolution in response to the university’s admission that the Office of Admissions sometimes takes into account applicants’ financial aid statuses when deciding whether or not to admit them.

The Senate passed the Administration Transparency Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Ryan Counihan, Nick Gumas and Ben Pryde, around 40 minutes after the Senate invoked a rare executive session, where they asked members of the public to leave.

“I’m tired of this sentiment of finding out that the university screwed up again and saying there’s nothing we can do about it,”  Counihan said.

Many non-undergraduate senators voted ‘present’ because they felt uncomfortable voting on a resolution pertaining only to the undergraduate admissions office.

Others questioned the reasoning behind the resolution.

“I’m concerned that [the resolution] could be interpreted in a negative light,” Senator Daniel Egel-Weiss said. “I want to commend the university for coming forward and being honest.”

The resolution does commend the university for coming forward, though it firmly states that the Undergraduate Office of Admissions must take clear steps toward better transparency.

SA Senate Seeks to Reduce Hazing and Relocate Student Health Services

By McKinley Kant

The GW Student Association Senate met Monday night in a crowded Marvin Center meeting room to pass multiple bills and hear updates from committees.

The Senate unanimously approved two bills that will express to GW officials the SA’s desire for an active effort to collect data on campus hazing, as well as the relocation and consolidation of student health and counseling services.

The Senate heard from Interfraternity Council SA Delegate Sean Kumnick, who said IFC is on board with the proposed Student Safety Act, which supports better monitoring of organizations on campus about hazing.

“IFC has taken heat for hazing allegations. In the past years we've seen reduced complaints, and we want to increase this climate against hazing on campus,” said Kumnick.

Sen. Nick Gumas, a sponsor of the bill, said the university currently does not actively collect data about the state of hazing on campus. Instead, the school is approaching the topic on a case-by-case basis.

SA President Julia Susuni spoke on the Health and Wellness Resources Act, which endorses the relocation of the Student Health Service to a more central location on campus, as well as its consolidation with the University Counseling Center, one of Susuni’s signature campaign promises.

“The people who are responsible for making this a reality have demonstrated that they want to work with us," Sen. Gumas said. "We are so confident that the student body wants this." 

The Senate also unanimously approved funding for TEDxFoggyBottom, which will take place next February.

$9,000 will be appropriated to co-sponsoring the event, said Chairman of the Finance Committee Ryan Counihan, which will help pay for audio and video equipment. In addition, $5,000 will be loaned to the event to cover the cost of holding the event at Lisner Auditorium, which will be paid back after the event.

Multiple senators couldn’t resist pointing out that the SA Senate seems to be functioning better than the United States Congress, which has yet to reach an agreement on ending the government shutdown entering its second week.

SA Senate Looks to Build off Susuni's Summer Accomplishments

By Myles Goldman

The GW Student Association Senate met for the first time this academic year Monday night in a packed Funger Hall classroom to review summer accomplishments and approve a variety of SA President Julia Susuni's nominations to various SA Cabinet posts, Student boards and student representatives to the Faculty Senate.  

Susuni reported that she and Vice President Kostas Skordalos were able to work with administrators to successfully increase the number of printing kiosks on campus, expand space and staff for the University Counseling Center, and after many years of student leaders advocating, work out the details to have many frequent food trucks on campus  accept GWorld cards as a form of payment.  

The Senate itself spent the majority of the evening approving Susuni's appointments to an open SA Executive Cabinet position, the SA Student Court, and seven Student Representatives to the Faculty Senate.  Susuni said that this is the first time in several years that there will be student representatives attending Faculty Senate committee meetings.  Susuni hopes that this will allow the SA and the Faculty Senate to work together on projects of mutual interest.

"There is a need for students to voice their opinions through as many channels as possible," Susuni said after the meeting.  "Putting students on the Faculty Senate allows us to take advantage of all the resources we have."

One surprise at the meeting was an announcement Senator Chris Stillwell (ESIA Undergrad) made.  Stillwell announced that a Greek Life Caucus was being formed in the Senate in response to the discussions regarding Greek Life housing policies that took place this summer between GW student leaders, administrators, and neighbors in Foggy Bottom.  Senator Nick Gumas (CCAS Undergrad) questioned the proposal arguing that there is a perception that the Senate already overly focuses heavily on Greek life because many Senators are themselves in fraternities and sororities.  

Following the meeting Senator Daniel Egel-Weiss, (Undergrad At Large) who has agreed to become a member of the Caucus, said that the Caucus already had a half-dozen Senators agree to join and that more are interested in signing-up.  

"Many members of the SA called for this Caucus," Egel-Weiss explained.  "Any senator may sit in on the Caucus' meetings and there is no official capacity in which the caucus operates." 

SA Senate Meeting Brings Little Fanfare but Plenty of Progress

by Sam Michel

For those who thought the Student Association Senate would accomplish little now that SA election season was over, last night’s meeting would have been a surprise. In one of the final SA Senate meetings of the 2012-2013 academic year, the Senate passed a number of resolutions and made significant progress on lesser-known initiatives nonetheless considered important to the student body.

Outgoing Executive Vice President Abby Bergren presided over the meeting in which several SA Senators were not present and as such were represented by proxies. Still having enough senators present for a quorum, the Senate quickly passed a number of resolutions. One resolution, sponsored by Senator Nick Gumas, asks future GW applicants to specify on their application whether they were gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Although the question would be optional and would have no effect on an applicant’s prospects of admission, Gumas argued that if GW can gather statistics on an incoming class’ religion, geographic background or race, then sexual orientation should be included in that category. The resolution passed with unanimous support.  Gumas said he would be bringing the issue up to the incoming Director of Admissions at the earliest convenience.

Dr. Bernard Demczuk, Assistant Vice President for DC Relations, addressed the Senate to promote increased communication between the GW community and the DC city government. An Aid to former DC Mayor Marion Barry, Demczuk described his job as helping GW students get a better understanding on how the DC government works, both in the city council and the mayor’s office. 

In his update to the Senate, a proxy for Student Association President Ashwin Narla informed the body of progress that had been made to allow food trucks to begin accepting GWorld cards as a payment option. He stressed however that while the negotiations were still ongoing, there was optimism that food trucks could begin accepting GWorld cards before the end of the school year.

In recognition of April Fools Day, Bergren temporarily resigned her position and allowed Hugo Scheckter, who ran an unsuccessful satirical campaign for SA President, to preside over the conclusion of the meeting. In his remarks, temporary-EVP Scheckter, dressed in his full royal attire, complimented the Senate on passing updated bylaws to the Senate Constitution “which the GW student community was really begging for.”

Student Association Starts Spring Semester with Three Bills

by Myles Goldman

The Student Association started the 2013 Semester passing three bills at its meeting this past Monday night.

The first bill titled, "A Bill to Create a New Way for Student Organizations to Raise Funds," creates an SA fund allowing student organizations to borrow money for a fundraiser and then after the fundraiser pay the SA back the money borrowed.  Any additional money the organization made the organization would be able to keep.  If the organization is unable to pay the SA back after the fundraiser, then they would go into debt, and the organization would be responsible for paying the SA back the remaining money either the next time they had a fundraiser or it would be taken out of the organization's next allocation.

Other stipulations of the bill put a cap of 500 dollars on the money an organization can borrow at any one time and that the loan cannot exceed the amount the organization was originally allocated.

The second bill focused on cases where student organizations are found guilty by the University of discriminating or hazing a student.  The bill titled, "Bylaws Amendment to Protect Students from Discrimination and Hazing" "imposes finance penalties on student orgs that the Dean of Students panel is found to have hazed or discriminated against individual students," according to language in the bill.  The bill calls for the SA Finance Committee to automatically take 33 percent of an organization's funding if they are found guilty of discrimination or hazing.  The bill gives the Finance Committee the ability to apply a stiffer penalty if they deem necessary.

The bill was proposed by Nick Gumas (CCAS) and later an amendment by Freshman Senator Ryan Moorman was approved that says the financial penalty would only be leveled against a specific organization and not umbrella organizations  unless the umbrella organization had been discriminating through all their sub-umbrella organizations.

Gumas explained that the intent of the bill was not to target fraternities or sororities, which the SA does not directly fund.

The SA approved the third bill, amendments to the Joint Elections Committee Charter for this spring's SA elections.  The JEC is the organization that oversees SA elections. Although many amendments were proposed for the charter, amendments such as eliminating penalties for SA Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates who ran as a ticket were rejected by the SA.  As a result, the approved JEC Charter is very similar to last year's.

In addition to passing bills at the meeting the SA also heard a presentation from the Division of Information Technology Services.  David Steinour, Chief Information Officer for the department, spoke to the SA and told them about a 4.2 million dollar wireless network upgrade the university is currently working on over the next three years in order to improve Internet service on campus.  Steinour commented that the Mount Vernon campus along with City Hall, The Dakota, and the Smith Center had already been upgraded.  Many other buildings and halls should be completed by the end of the academic year Steinour said.

Finally, SA President Ashwin Narla told senators that the second student space proposal from his administration was to be completed by Friday, January 18th.  Narla told senators the proposal would focus on long-term goals and the plan would include building onto the third floor terrace in the Marvin Center.