ASUAF March 3 Meeting Recap
By Maria Menninger
ASUAF held their last meeting before break on March 3. One hot topic was the unresolved cross country team’s usage of the SRC track and travel fund requests.
Historically, the SRC exists to serve students first and everybody else second. Athletes practice in their designated spaces but the track team has no other indoor track to utilize during the winter. This raised the question amongst athletes if they are not considered students first by SRC regulations?
ASUAF became involved when the SRC and track team could not reach an agreement. After weeks of contemplating and gathering student and SRC users’ feedback about the situation, ASUAF drafted a resolution to support the cross-country team’s usage of the SRC. But this resolution failed to include students’ opinions.
External Affairs Sen. Brynn Illingworth spoke with SRC Director Mark Oldmixon regarding the cross-country team’s pending usage of the SRC track. Illingworth said she believed the resolution was taken to a place it was not intended to go, which has caused miscommunication among the SRC, cross country team, and students who believe their concerns are not being heard. Illingworth advocated for letting the current resolution die in the senate. That way the SRC, cross country team, and ASUAF can start over and reach a positive outcome, she said.
Wiltz also relayed that he and Oldmixon believe it would be best to start the process over again so that all parties can reach a clear line of communication.
Proper communication is the goal. The Senate voted to not adopt the resolution due to the potential of it doing more harm than good.
Other matters discussed included special orders of travel funding for Blake Toney, Patricia Hutton, and Miranda Ehlers were voted on. Sen. Eugene Wiltz advocated to expedite the Senate’s decision on Ehlers travel funds because he believed her to be a strong applicant and the rarity of Ehlers presenting at the event. “Through the ASUAF travel fund we don’t really see that a lot,” Wiltz said.
Ehlers attended the meeting to clarify her request and answer any questions senators had. A graduate student studying biological archeology and forensic anthropology, she requested the funds to aid travel costs for her trip to the American Association of Biological Anthropologists’ 95th annual meeting where she will be presenting her dissertation and research.
With this trip, Ehlers hopes to strengthen UAF’s relationship with the international biological anthropology community and make UAF’s scholars more visible to this large community of researchers, she said.
The senate adopted Ehlers’ travel funds and tabled the other two applicants due to the requestors not being present. Sen. Bonnie Brennan said Ehlers’ travels is an awesome opportunity, and she is very glad to see Ehler go.
President Jackson Nelson expressed his excitement over UAF hosting the Governor’s debate this year and his plans to fill the Davis Concert Hall for the event. He also spoke about his meeting with Julie Queen, Owen Guthrie and Chancellor Sfraga regarding the student consolidation fee, a $56 per credit fee that pays for all student services, in hopes to raise ASUAF’s distribution percentage from 2.5% to 4% to increase their annual operating budget. Nelson has “great hope that they will receive those funds.”
Nelson also spoke about his meeting with the American Association of University Women to discuss youth voter apathy among students. ASUAF sent out a survey to students that asked questions regarding students’ attitude towards voting and their history with voting. Nelson stated that this was a very productive poll that showed 85-90% of students are registered to vote, but do not go out to the polls.
He expressed his ideas to promote voting and how to make voting more accessible to students by providing polling stations in the Wood Center this November during voting season. Nelson noted that if you are an Alaska resident you can vote in the Wood Center. However, municipal elections will not take place on campus, but Nelson would like to provide shuttles for students who need to vote elsewhere.
“I’m very excited to get this going,” Nelson said. “It’s going to be awesome.”
Vice President Yan Vyshynskyi touched on a Faculty Senate proposal regarding faculty’s responsibility to handle doctor’s notes from students, believing that ORCA should be communicating with the students instead. Should the proposal be passed, Faculty Senate would like to amend the syllabus addendum.
Senator Jesse Tyrrell spoke briefly on the decision to implement time limits on ASUAF senate meetings, and the amendments made to the rules to reflect these changes. The meetings will now be unable to surpass two hours unless a motion is made to extend.
Brennan closed the meeting with a reminder that there will be no meeting during spring break.
The meeting adjourned at 6:40 p.m.