Student Senate: business as usual
By Samantha Pirc, Campus Life writer
May 3, 2007 | noon
Despite a heated presidential debate occurring just the night before, it was business as usual at Ohio University’s Student Senate meeting May 2.
Once again there were no students present to “speak out” on anything. It seems that since the infamous sports cuts the OU administration has not done enough to get its students fired up. With all the complaining you can hear while standing in line at the dinning hall you would think the line of people waiting to tell the senate their grievances would be out the door. To me this is a symbol of one of the downfalls of Student Senate–hardly anyone knows it exists, and those who do have no idea what it does.
Tell me about it...
The senate received two presentations at Wednesday’s meeting. The first was a short tutorial by President Morgan Allen on the new electronic voting system that will be used on May 17 for the elections. Allen presented a mock ballot displaying the different issue choices and explained how students would sign in, where they could write in candidates’ names, etc. Results will be available immediately, although I am sure that the Board of Elections will wait a little bit to increase everyone’s suspense – everyone being the small percentage of students who actually vote. The hope is that the new electronic ballots will increase voter turnout, which is good considering the voters from last election represented not even half of the university.
The next presentation was by Chief of OUPD Mike Martinson on campus safety. He spent a great deal of time explaining how OUPD would respond to a shooter situation similar to Virginia Tech and reassured the senate that the police force is fully capable of handling such a disaster. Martinson explained that in the pre-Columbine era police were trained to just contain the situation, but now police such as the OUPD are capable of entering an area and neutralizing the threat.
He also offered advice as to what students should do if there were ever a dangerous situation, the most obvious of which was to get as far away from the person as possible. Police would have a difficult time during such a situation distinguishing between a suspect and an innocent student caught in the shuffle, so Martinson explained that you should make sure to keep your hands up and visible when police are trying to clear an area.
It also seems that old Baker will be put to use finally, with the OU crisis incident response team and other law enforcement agencies doing training scenarios there. Martinson cited the similarities between the layout of the old student center and many of the other older buildings on campus as one of the reasons they would be using the building.
From the desk of the president
Senate President Allen started out the officers’ reports by giving the senate information about a new Web site that is set up to inform students about the issues that will be voted on in the upcoming election. The site has a calendar of events, information about all of the ballot issues and contact information for people who can answer any questions a student might have.
As a spectator, this was one of the best things to come out of this meeting. Unless you are deeply involved with the senate, how would the everyday student get information on what the heck they are supposed to vote on? No matter how hard they try to get people involved, there is no way that Student Senate or anyone can put up enough fliers or hold enough forums to get people informed. The Web site should definitely be linked to the OU homepage so that students are made aware that it exists.
Senator reports
Of the senators’ reports, one that especially sparked my interest was that of LGBT Affairs Commissioner Will Wemer. He spoke of recent tension between the LGBT and Greek communities, in light of certain events that have occurred in the media, online and elsewhere in the past week. While I had no idea what sort of tensions Wemer was speaking of, I commend him for taking the high road and realizing that the only way to solve the problem is to increase communications between the two groups. Wemer hopes that they will soon be speaking on more peaceful terms to ease some of this tension.
Residence Life Commissioner Chris Diehl gave information about the committee that is working to figure out what to do with the Oasis building. The goal is apparently to have a plan by the end of this quarter as to the future of this beloved student landmark.
In other news
In other news, Senate Vice President Paul Crites announced that Amanda J. Cunningham was almost unanimously voted to receive the OU Bobcat Medal, the highest honor that can be given on behalf of the student body. Cunningham was an OU student who passed away in 2003 in a car accident in her hometown. While I obviously have never met her, the credentials that Crites listed off made it apparent Cunningham was an amazing woman who did a lot for the OU community. There will be a dedication of the leadership center in Baker that was named after Cunningham on May 12, on which date the medal will also be given.
After this announcement, the senate moved into an informal debate structure to discuss two budget issues, one of which I found both sad and humorous.
Take Back the Night Week has been taking place, and a week’s worth of activities has led up to the annual rally and march. Student Senate has already allocated $1,700 worth of funds to the events, which Women’s Affairs Commissioner Lee Robbins had believed to be sufficient to cover all costs. It seems, however, that when talking to the Athens police officer who is in charge of supervising the march, Robbins was informed that an additional $315 was needed to cover the cost of three more off-duty officers for the event. No extra money, no extra officers, no march was the scenario.
Obviously the senate voted to give the extra funds, but I found it completely ridiculous that so many police officers needed to be present at a march and rally that are focused on decreasing violence against women, which would therefore reduce the amount of work the police actually had to do in the first place. What really got my feminist blood boiling was when Patrick Heery (who was speaking in Robbins’ place as she was attending a TBNW event) informed the senate that the officer in charge of supervising the event had told Robbins that if it had been up to him, the event wouldn’t have happened at all! Apparently last year the parade permit had not been followed and those crazy women got so rambunctious that the police had to call backup.
The meeting closed up with an interesting discussion on campus safety that Allen began so that the senators would start thinking of how it can be improved. She floated the idea that a committee had come up with: to have either a siren to warn students that a shooting was occurring or to have the school send a mass text message to people’s phones. The siren idea seemed to cause the most commotion, as one senator pointed out that it would most likely just cause mass chaos and students to “run around like chickens with their head’s cut off,” while another pointed out that you would have no idea where was safe if there was just a siren.
---
Learn more about the issues being debated by your Student Senate at www.getinformedOU.com
May 17, make your voice heard by casting your vote for next year's Student Senate.