Student Senate

Senate passes bills addressing food insecurity on campus

Maddie Kasper

More stories from Maddie Kasper

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The Student Senate meeting began at 6:03 p.m. on Monday in the Woodland Theater.

Lily Strehlow, a sustainability specialist in the risk management, safety and sustainability department, gave a presentation about Pack it Up, Pass it On on behalf of environmental health specialist Iris Casey at the Eau Claire City-County Health Department, who has run the event for the past several years.

Student Organization Commission Director Bradford Heap withdrew bill 66-B-13 because he said the way it was written had unintentionally excluded appeals in the segregated fee process.

Heap said a new version of the bill has already been written and then reviewed by the Student Organization Commission, Parliamentarian Thomas Miller and Student Senate Program Manager Stephanie Pyykola.

Senator Mei Bean reintroduced bill 66-B-14 amending the Intergovernmental Affairs Commission bylaws to include an annual fundraiser for the Campus Harvest Food Pantry.

Bill 66-B-14 passed unanimously with a vote of 25-0-2.

Bean also reintroduced bill 66-B-15 funding donation bins supporting the Campus Harvest Food Pantry and Campus Closet to be placed in residence halls.

Bean said, upon passage of the bill, she would work with hall directors to decide where to place the donation bins.

Bill 66-B-15 passed unanimously with a vote of 25-0-2.

“The food insecurity issue on campus is so prevalent, as well as coming from someone who was raised in poverty and got to go to college, it’s such a great resource for students to be able to go and get food or get anything that they just really need to live on-campus or off-campus,” Bean said. “I wish that more students knew about it.”

Student Office of Sustainability Commission Senate Director Sydney McGuine introduced bill 66-B-16 amending the SOS bylaws to create four annual student coordinator positions in the Administrative Office of Sustainability (AOS).

McGuine said the student coordinator positions are the AOS waste reduction coordinator, AOS green labs coordinator, AOS/MSS equity and food security coordinator and AOS sustainability special projects coordinator positions.

The student coordinators would be paid 25% of their tuition, totaling $16,000 for the four positions, according to McGuine.

McGuine also introduced bill 66-B-17 funding the annual Pack it Up, Pass it On event and using $7,144 to subsidize moving costs for students and encourage sustainable moving out practices.

Bills 66-B-16 and 66-B-17 will be voted on at the next senate meeting.

Senate Personnel Director Anakah Dension introduced resolution 66-R-16 in support of creating a guide for incoming students, transfer students, international students and students of marginalized identities.

Dension said she started working on the guide last session for a service-learning project but would like to revise the guide and publish it through the senate.

Resolution 66-R-16 passed unanimously with a vote of 21-0-2.

Senator Matthew Lehner introduced resolution 66-R-17 calling on the Joint Committee on Finance to approve phase II funding for UW-Eau Claire’s new Science and Health Sciences Building.

The Joint Committee on Finance will hold a public hearing to get input from the community on the 2023-25 Biennial Budget from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 11 in the Ojibwe Ballroom of Davies Student Center.

Resolution 66-R-17 passed unanimously with a vote of 22-0-2.

“This will be a great show of support and we’ll show the Joint Finance Committee that we the student body are behind this and that we as an elected representative body support this,” Lehner said. “It’s good to get our professional opinion on it and it’ll be a good argument if I get a chance to speak in front of the committee tomorrow.”

The senate adjourned at 7:53 p.m. and will reconvene at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 17 in the Dakota Ballroom.

Kasper can be reached at [email protected].