Association Discusses Student Bill of Rights

Student Fee Allocation Board Updates General Assembly on State of Funds

The Student Association General Assembly made plans to continue discussions on the proposed student bill of rights and received an update on student fee allocations from the Student Fee Allocation Board at their meeting Tuesday night.

Delegate Andrew Platt presented a student bill of rights to the General Assembly.

“This was the first reading of the bill, so this is not its final form and has yet to be adopted,” said delegate Ryan Winn. Read more

Student Association Wants to Establish Judicial Rights

Students deserve a binding bill of rights which guarantees them a right to view charges brought against them in judicial sessions, an unequivocal freedom of speech and some form of counsel for judicial proceedings, according to the student life branch of the Student Association General Assembly.

“Law professors here laugh at the way judicial proceedings are handled,” said sophomore Alexander Pinnix, a member of SAGA.

In a meeting led by Junior Andrew Platt, SAGA members suggested rights not guaranteed to students by the University. Those missing rights, some said, could be made an issue by the student life board.

Any bill passed by that board, or any other student committee, is non-binding. University administrators would have no reason to enforce any bill of rights, unless they are brought into the discussion, said Platt. “They’re going to listen, because I’m going to make them listen,” he continued.

The board is drafting a document which will go before SAGA. Once it is passed, student representatives plan to bring the document to University administrators for formal adoption into the student code of conduct.

“We shouldn’t reach for things in this. It needs to be a reasonable document,” said senior Courtney Martin, who has had experience in three versions of student government.

Another topic discussed was clarifying what rules are enforceable on and off campus by the Department of Public Safety and the Office of Student Life. “Are they deputized all the way to Fourteenth Street? I don’t even know,” said Platt.

New Student Government Sets Goals

Students should be provided safe passage through the Brookland neighborhood at night and major campus events should be promoted in a way that attracts the student body, concluded the Student Association General Assembly’s Student Life committee (SAGA) at their meeting on Tuesday.

Representatives from every class met in Hannan Hall to discuss their goals and purposes. Among their plans was a more complete system for evaluating resident assistants and ministers on behalf of the student body.

“I don’t think they should be a police force, but if there are 50 students on a floor and 40 of them have been written up and they weren’t involved in something, that’s not right,” said Courtney Martin, Department of Public Safety and facilities and maintenance liaison.

The board concluded that most problems with dining services, when presented to University contractor Aramark, have been remedied swiftly, thanks to the Dining Services Advisory Board, a vestige of the defunct University Student Government, which was established to keep communications open with the people cooking food for University students.

Many students have complained about a lack of study areas on campus, partially due to a crackdown on dorm visitation hours. New rules limit weekday visitors to midnight, whether they are studying or partying. Several members argued for pushing the visitation hours back, while some thought that Mullen Library and other school specific libraries, such as Physics in Hannan and Nursing in Gowan, should expand their hours.

“Ideally I’d like to remove visitation hours, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, so we have to find a way to make it easier to study that administration will accept,” said Ryan Winn, student life committee chair.

Representatives also wished to make students’, who are appearing before the disciplinary hearing board, rights public. “I know a lot of students who have showed up, and just got railroaded, because they just didn’t know what was going on,” said Winn.

Afifeh Alaween, speaker of SAGA, reported that they had made progress with David Best, assistant director of Judicial Affairs and Ethical Development, on a systematic way to inform the accused.
“In a court, at least you have someone on your side, and maybe we can get at least some information out,” said Winn.

The dropped program known as Safe Rides is a priority for this year’s representatives, as well. In the past, students were given free transportation by student driven University vans. The vans would have stops in the Brookland community, though not on the 12th Street corridor and not at The Cloisters. Reports of students selling beer out of the vans, and using them as strictly bar and party transportation led to the programs disbandment. “I’m going to put this low on the list, but I do think that it is not good students are walking around in Brookland,” said Winn. “Why don’t we just tell people to not be stupid, use their brains and not walk around alone,” said Nick Adamescu, a representative on SAGA.

Student reps did not make clear which goals were long term and which were short term.

- Ryan J. Reilly contributed to this report

Freshmen Elect Student Association Representatives

Freshmen elected their student association leaders yesterday. Winners were elected last night, ending a week of active campaigning.

Colin Schmitt, a politics major, garnered 204 votes, the most of any race, taking one of the seven delegate positions on the Student Association General Assembly.

“I now look forward to working with the six other freshmen elected, as well as the entire SAGA,” said Schmitt in an early-morning message to his supporters.

In addition to filling positions on SAGA, freshmen chose Christopher Prudente to represent them on the Student Fee Allocation Board.

Tower writer Katrina Avila was also elected to be the committee chairman for the class of 2012 on the Program Board.

The newly elected freshmen will join the rest of SAGA, SFAB and Program Board next weekend on a leadership retreat to Camp Letts in Maryland.

“They’re the future,” said Afifeh Alaween, the speaker of the SAGA.” We want to make sure that they’re ready for it.”

The senior representatives on SAGA have also chosen a new student to fill a vacancy that was created over the summer, when Delegate Chad Longell took a leave of absence from the University to enlist full-time with the Army.

The selected candidate has been notified, and will be announced next week.

The sophomore and junior members of SAGA are currently seeking to fill three other vacancies, and will announce their decisions next week as well.

Freshmen Adam Davis, Dan Essig, Anne Roth, Felicia Charles, John Eby and Thomas Cunningham also won positions on SAGA.