In addition to discussing issues of divestment at their first meeting of the year, student senators turned their attention to the pressing matter of the upcoming election to fill the Senate chairs emptied by resigning senators.
Junior Yvonne Doble, first-year Kevin Guzman and sophomore Bobbi Lopez resigned at the end of last semester, leaving the 15-person Senate three seats short.
Senators opened nominations Monday. "We've gotten a couple of nominations so far, including one Conservatory student, so that's very exciting," senator sophomore Sarah Stein Greenberg said.
The election is set to begin Jan. 16. Because this special election only ensures new candidates a Senate seat for the remainder of the Spring semester rather than for a full school year, only 10 percent of the student body needs to vote nominees into office rather than the 20 percent usually necessary to reach quorum.
Elected senators who wish to continue serving on Senate must run again in the regular Spring elections, to be held in April, according to Stein Greenberg.
This election marks a turning point for the Student Senate voting process. From now on, according to Stein Greenberg, all votes will be cast on alpha.
"In the past we've gotten a fair voting turnout on alpha, but usually two-thirds are done by paper ballots. It's going to be a real shift," Stein Greenberg said. "In the future Senate will have a much more sophisticated voting program in which people can vote for senators and referendum issues electronically, so why not start now?"
At the meeting senators also discussed the progress of the Senate-affiliated advisory councils. While most of the advisory council chairs had no current business to discuss, senator junior Meagan Willits and senator senior Dan Persky had much to say about the outcome of their work as co-chairs of the Health Plan advisory council.
Their efforts in working with the College's Health Plan Board to improve Student Health paid off with the arrival of a proposal from Collegiate Health Care (CHC) which met many of their outlined goals for a better health services program. The new location of the renovated Student Health at the building at 319 W. Lorain, however, has led to much frustration for Willits and Persky.
"It's not where we want it, but it's where it's going to be," Persky said.
Although the building is a temporary, two- or three-year site for Student Health, Willits and Persky had been pushing the Health Plan Board and administrators to find a central on-campus location.
"We originally proposed moving Student Health to Griswold Commons in Stevenson dining hall, but it all came down to cost," Persky said. He added that some administrative estimates had placed the cost of renovating Stevenson at $200,000, while improvements to the W. Lorain site purportedly cost only $25,000.
Willits expressed her frustration about the lack of a better location solution. "It's been troubling for us; it's been a hard issue. I am honestly infuriated with this and I would like to make people angry about it," Willits said.
Persky and Willits told Senate they are pushing for the College to provide door-to-door shuttle service to and from the new Student Health, which will open upon CHC's arrival July 1 if renovations to the building can be made that quickly.
"We're doing what we can to make the W. Lorain St. location survivable," Willits said. "The services we're getting so far out of this new contract are greatly enhanced. The only major stumbling block right now is what to do to make the location work."
Willits and Persky requested Senate's help in talking to administrators about the advisory council's location-related unhappiness.
"Student health has been completely ignored on this campus for 15 years. Now the school has the money, they have the ideas; we can make this work in some way," Persky said.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 14, February 13, 1998
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