Senate votes to move meeting to public venue

Workgroups discuss advising, rule revision

Senate passed a proposal to move their weekly meetings to a public venue as well as discussed academic advising, the proposed rule and regulation revisions and a housing and dining survey in work groups this week.

The proposal to move the meetings is designed in the hopes that the public meetings would attract those interested to freely and comfortably join the meetings. Next Sunday, Senate will meet in Wilder lobby and next semester might move outside if weather permits.

Senators were enthusiastic about the proposal and passed it unanimously. Senator first year Russell Menyhart said, "I hope it draws people into discussion and makes them aware of the issues being addressed each week at Senate."

First-year Nina Fallenbaum said, "I am more concerned with the issues Senate discusses than the setting in which the meetings take place." Fallenbaum stressed issues relevant to racism at Oberlin College as an example of an issue she would be more interested in.

Two other students agreed with the importance of content over venue. "If they had an agenda and something I was interested in on the agenda I would go," one student said.

Another student said, "I don't feel like the actions of the Senate affect me enough that I would be interested in attending."

The Senate passed the proposal and sent it to the Communications Committee, which is one of four internal committees of the Senate, to work out the details for the implementation of the proposal.

After the half hour meeting of the entire Senate, they broke into work groups: Quality of Life, Academic Affairs and Housing and Dining.

The Quality of Life Work group discussed the proposal to create a task force on student rights, responsibilities and regulations with new Associate Dean of Student Life and Services Bill Stackman.

Stackman said the task force will be created over a two-year period. The task force would evaluate and revise the current rules and regulations. Stackman said the rules need to be reevaluated because they are outdated. "The system is outdated and some things are not properly addressed in the [rules and regulations] … Students had voiced concern over some policies," he said.

Stackman said a major reason the rules are outdated is because "it is not clear who wrote them."

Stackman illustrated the need to evaluate the rules by describing the current Judicial Board system. "The process to deal with a judicial complaint against a student takes weeks, posed rule revisions in various ways. Junior Kathy Kvitek has lived in a dorm for three years and said she is not concerned about the current rules and regulations.

Another student said, "I think the school is over involved with the life of students in some dorms, especially East."

One first-year said, "It doesn't matter to me. I don't think the changes are going to change how people live in their rooms, whether they have irons, heaters, or drugs."

The Academic Affairs Work group discussed advisor-advisee relations. Senator junior Dan Perskey