Student Senate has an eventful year

The Student Senate took strong stands on many controversial student issues throughout this year. Although senators faced many failures, they addressed student concerns from co-ed housing to the drug policy at their weekly meetings.

Every Sunday, senators met to discuss significant issues, procedures in question and charters to be passed. Guests, including Dean of Student Life and Services Charlene Cole-Newkirk and college junior Matt Holford, who was evicted from South Hall, attended various meetings in order to share their concerns and views with the senators.

The most recent event that Senate was involved with was the co-ed rooms speak-out that was held on the steps of Wilder Hall in late April. Senators as well as a few other students on campus spoke about their desire for the implementation of co-ed housing.

Senator senior Noah Bopp said at the speak-out that the reason Senate was holding the rally was that the administrative response to Senate's co-ed housing proposal "was pathetic" and showed "a lack of faith."

Bopp encouraged the crowd to sign up on a list Senate was passing throughout the crowd if they wanted to live with someone of the opposite gender in a residential hall.

Bopp also said that the Senate is planning on circulating their own version of Fussers, the campus telephone and address directory, next year. This one, according to Bopp, will have the phone and room numbers of people in the places where they are actually residing.

On March 10, Student Senate addressed Holford's eviction from South Hall. Holford went before the Senate to inform them about his situation. He was evicted by Cole-Newkirk because of multiple complaints of drug use by his neighbors.

"I went because a friend on the ACLU advised me to," Holford said. Senate originally supported Holford's decision to stay in his room and passed several proposals concerning his case.

Three proposals that were passed concerning Holford's situation included a plea to Cole-Newkirk to clarify the drug and alcohol policy with student input, a request to meet with Cole-Newkirk and President Nancy Dye to discuss the drug and alcohol policy and gather information about Holford, and another request to meet solely with Cole-Newkirk.

At the meeting, sophomore Blair Heiserman said, "As senators, we have to be against this because it is an abuse of power."

Senator sophomore Andreas Pape said, "My concern is that a precedent is being set if rules can be cast aside because the issue is drugs." He said his main concern was that Holford be treated fairly, and that whether he has done anything illegal was secondary.

Senators also addressed security issues this year. Senate met with the Director of Security at Arizona State University, Bill Besswho visited the campus as a consultant. Bess said he hoped to get ideas from senators for the reworking of parts of the campus security and to bounce ideas that he already had off the group.

Senators also wrote a letter to Cole-Newkirk and former Director of Security Richard McDaniel stating the need for additional lighting on campus early spring semester. Since the letter, there has been an increase in the amounts of lighting across the campus, including the repainting of the security "blue light" phones, which the senate recommended near the end of `95 spring semester.

Senate responded to student dissatisfaction of the health care services on campus by sending out and compiling a survey to the student body. The results were given just as Cole-Newkirk brought consultants to the campus to look into changes that should be made to the college's health system.

Despite their successes in effectively dealing with several issues on campus, senators had to deal with mistakes including the loss of charters and not recognizing a candidate who ran for senate in September was actually a high school student.

On February 11, senators discussed the fact that a number of charters which had been submitted for approval had been lost. Senate is the first body that approves a potential student group's charter.

The Senators reasoned that the loss must have occured when a senator resigned during the first semester. The senator held many of the proposed charters. The senator then gave a folder with the charters to someone within the Student Union, and from there, the whereabouts of the documents became unknown.

As a result, the Senate has no way of recovering the charters that were in the lost folder. The copies of the charters are missing as well.

Bopp called the situation with the charters an "example of why (the Senate) is struggling for legitimacy."

Of the 30 Senators who were elected to office during the fall semester, only about 17 remain and have been attending meeting over February.

During the fall semester election, Ian Blecher, a sixteen year old junior at Oberlin High School, ran for Senate. Blecher nominated himself through e-mail. Former senator junior Mark Graham said he discovered Blecher's status on September 14 when a professor examining the VAX voting program told Graham that Blecher was a high school student.

Graham said, "There was nothing we could have done to catch the fact that this kid is a high school student."

Although Blecher did not win, senators worried that they would have to discuss the situation amongst themselves and investigate by-laws that could prohibit him from serving on the Senate.

This spring ten senators were elected or reelected.