MSA Senate pushes through legislation

The legislation deadline for this Senate term was Tuesday at noon.

By Amanda Wysocki

Published March 9, 2009

The deadline for the Missouri Students Association Senate to submit legislation was today at noon, but 16 pieces of legislation have already been discussed.

At a cabinet meeting Monday night, MSA Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays went through a list of legislation to be passed through committees and the full Senate.

"Rather than the number, the only important thing is the quality," Mays said. "Hopefully, we can be judged by our success in advocating for the students and being thorough and well-researched in our Senate opinions."

Mays covered items relating to the Academic Affairs, Campus and Community Relations, Student Affairs, Budget, Multicultural Issues and Operations committees, as well as general legislation and future plans.

One of the proposed pieces of legislation concerns the installation of emergency phones in Greektown. At a meeting held with Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association chapter presidents earlier this semester, many concerns were voiced about the installation.

MSA President Jordan Paul said he felt even after the meeting, most of the Greek students supported the emergency phones.

"That meeting was more or less dominated by a minority within the Interfraternity Council that felt this was not the best idea for a few reasons," Paul said. "We put together this survey that incorporated my ideas and the IFC/PHA suggestions."

Academic Affairs drafted legislation including military transfer credit, online textbook comparison shopping, changes to finals week and military absentee ballots.

MU does not accept transfer credit for education and training while in military services, while other colleges around the country do.

BrunoBooks.com has approached MSA about putting side-by-side price comparisons for course textbooks on the bookstore Web site, but alternate providers are also being considered.

MSA would like to hold a referendum on April 6-8 to determine student opinion on proposed changes to finals week. The Faculty Council has proposed changing Reading Day to Thursday and beginning final exams the next day.

The Academic Affairs Committee also is proposing resolution to count military absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day.

Campus and Community Relations Committee's main projects involve Greektown. Along with the emergency phone installation, they also wish to change trash pickup in East Campus from Wednesday to Monday in order to eliminate trash buildup during the first part of the week.

Student Affairs Committee wants to expand EZ Charge to include downtown restaurants. They also want to propose legislation to be able to search for people by their preferred names in Webmail rather than their legal names.

Budget and Operations committees have legislation to clear up bylaws, such as discrepancies over student fee changes and outdated references in the MSA Senate handbook.

Multicultural Issues Committee will continue to work on legislation involving gender identity and recognizing transgender students.

The Senate also plans to work on legislation supporting the Access Missouri grant program and providing a voting student curator.

MSA Senate Speaker-elect Amanda Shelton takes office Wednesday night and she will be responsible for pushing the legislation through the full Senate.

"I am no stranger to a great deal of work and I'm very excited because many of the issues put forth in the legislation tonight have the potential to directly affect students," Shelton said. "I'm very excited about the gargantuan amount of legislation and I'm really excited to hit the ground running with it."