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This week’s ASUW student senate meeting began with multiple addresses by various people along with respective forums for open discussion, and ended with voting on legislative directives and first readings on a handful of bills proposed by senior senators of the body.
Several representatives from the UW’s Housing Food and Services (HFS) took to the floor to address the student body, providing various updates on recent policy changes and long-term outlook, as well as refreshing them on the exact role HFS plays at the university.
The forum began with presentations from HFS executive director Pam Schreiber, director of facilities and capital planning Rob Lubin, and director of UW dining Gary Goldberg. The major takeaway Schreiber emphasized was that HFS is nonprofit, a fact that escapes many when debate around the role of HFS occurs.
“HFS is a self-sustaining, auxiliary operation,” Schreiber said in her address to the senate. “We are here in support of the university and the support we provide is to residential communities.”
Their presentation centered around being specifically in support of — not a part of — the university, and how they have accomplished their goals in line with this vision. They noted how HFS does not receive any tuition or other state government money, and must be self-sufficient, thus driving a lot of its decisions. More juicy details about HFS and its master plan can be found on its website.
Five minutes for questions followed, which is fairly important given the relationship between HFS and the student body. While complaints are a dime a dozen, the student senate for the most part acknowledged them evenhandedly, asking informational rather than pointed questions.
Afterward, the ASUW Office of Government Relations (OGR) gave a report on LD-23-3, which was passed in fall quarter of this year. The lobbying efforts of the senate for a state ban on conversion therapy was ultimately not enough for the relevant state bill to garner bipartisan support previously, and this time it was killed by a house committee before OGR could even lobby for it at all.
This was an otherwise expected outcome, but the OGR’s hopes were lifted after successfully gaining state Sen. Marko Liias’ support for other conversion therapy ban bills in the future.
The director of university affairs for the ASUW, Kaitlyn Zhou, gave an update on R-23-21, a resolution regarding affordable course materials. It was introduced winter quarter this year, and the results were exactly as I would’ve expected.
The resolution encouraged professors strongly to use reusable lab manuals and older textbooks in order to make them more affordable to students. Zhou announced that the response was that professors have complete and full autonomy over their course materials, and that there was no real effect for the resolution.
The sponsor of the bill, Alexander Novokhodko, was also the sponsor of LD-23-6, which was the carbon tax legislative directive. He also serves on the Academic and Administrative Affairs committee.
Novokhodko introduced an interesting rule change to the senate, highlighting what appears to be ongoing issues with attendance of the student senate body. OA-23-3 directly deals with proxy voting, which is when a senator has another student stand in to vote on issues for them when they cannot attend.
The very first statement stated that quorum was not achieved on March 7 of this year, and it prevented many time-sensitive legislative issues from being debated or voted on. Ultimately, the rule change would allow up to six absences per senator for a 10-week term.
In that vein, if one is going to go through the trouble of garnering 15 signatures to be a senator and doesn’t even show up half the time, then it seems to me rule changes to accommodate them may be less preferable to punitive measures for deterrence. The only issue with that idea is that punitive measures could prevent future quorums. I don’t buy the argument that proxies are beneficial, however, which seemed to be a stance some had taken.
While it does allow new blood into the senate, that defeats the purpose of being a representative in the first place as one cannot physically give their reasoning in the same capacity during discussion and debate should they be absent.
Summary: This meeting left a lot to be desired, as addresses, forums, and rule changes were large topics of discussion. I expect a lot of new business to be addressed in the future.
Reach columnist Zackary Bonser at opinion@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @ZackaryBonser
