SU Senate meets for the second to last time this semester

| Staff Writer

Committees of Student Union (SU) Senate held further discussions of their projects during their meeting on March 7, specifically postponing the add/drop deadline and attaining greater access to safe sex supplies on campus, March 28. More than 20 senators were present at the meeting.

 

Updates from the Academic Affairs Committee: Changing the Add/Drop Deadline

 

The Academic Affairs Committee presented their semester-long project to extend the add/drop deadline by five weeks, providing students until the eighth week in the academic calendar to add and drop courses.

The committee began by identifying existing problems associated with the current deadline.

Students enrolled in a class are faced with a decision of whether to drop a course only after a couple of class meetings, during which time the class usually has not reached its “full-form pace,” causing unnecessary “stress and anxiety among the student population,” according to the committee.

While researching peer institutions, the committee discovered that many universities across the country, such as Princeton, Harvard, and Cornell, grant students a much longer period for the add/drop deadline.

“The moral of the story of this situation is that our peer institutions seem to have a ton more flexibility than we do here at WashU, and we think that that is something we can recommend,” said Senator Jojo Spio, a senior and the Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee.

The committee also admitted some of the drawbacks of an extension of the add/drop period, such as reduced motivation to drop the class for students who do not need or are not interested in the course, making it more difficult for students in need of the class to enroll.

“That could mess up people’s graduation timeline,” said Senator Nikhil Datta, a sophomore.

Benefits to an add/drop deadline extension include empowering students to “take classes outside of their strengths,” in addition to giving them more time to “make informed decisions about their schedule,” according to the Committee.

Spio also commented on potential administrative difficulties in pushing forward this change.

“For something of this scale to happen, each school’s dean has to make that change,” he said. “Some academic schools may be in support of it, but not every school.”

Changes like this, if proposed by one school, are likely to be welcomed and supported by other schools.

“In my meetings with [the administration], it seems that Arts and Sciences, Sam Fox, and McKelvey are in favor of such a change,” Spio said. “Olin seems to be pretty opposed to it, as they say that it would adversely impact group work…and if we extend the add/drop deadline, it would disrupt the group work, as people would be leaving their groups.”

Olin’s opposition to the add/drop extension is the main reason why the deadline has not changed in the recent past, Spio said.

 

Updates from the Health and Wellness Committee: Better Access to Safe Sex Supplies

 

The Health and Wellness Committee has been working on providing better access to safe sex supplies through vending machines in conjunction with the University’s Policy Institute and Planned Parenthood Generation Action (PPGA).

Condoms supplied to dorms on South 40 run out quickly, and supplies provided by Bear Mail every two weeks have proven insufficient. The goal of the vending machines is to “offer some consistency” outside of the “inconsistency” that the current situation creates, according to the committee.

According to the committee’s peer institution research, the vending machines are “successful and popular” within the universities where they exist, and are “readily available, affordable, and reflective of the needs of the student body.”

The University’s Policy Institute has started a survey regarding the interest of the student body in installing a vending machine for safe sex supplies. A majority of approximately 250 responses indicated that students are not aware of where they can procure safe sex supplies on campus.

Recommendations of the types of safe sex supplies for the vending machine include  “specialty and novelty condoms, pregnancy tests, lubrications, Plan B, personal vibrators, and any products as deemed necessary by student demand,” according to the Committee.

After an analysis of the costs that the project incurs, the Committee discussed the next steps the project will take, such as securing funding, identifying ideal locations, expanding partnerships with producers of the supplies, launching social media campaigns, raising awareness, and continuing collaboration with other organizations on campus.

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