• Elections: During the Nov. 9 and 10 elections, 24 students were elected as representatives in 10 Congress districts. Only 6 percent of OU students voted in the election and election chairwoman Natalie Jester said she plans to educate students about the spring election ballot issues and offices.
• Budgetary Procedures Reform Act of 2010: On Dec. 5, the Graduate Student Senate approved the Budgetary Procedures Reform Act of 2010, which sets all budget-related deadlines at the discretion of budget chairman Sean Bender, chemistry sophomore.
• Emergency allocations: Five rounds of emergency allocations were approved by GSS and UOSA, with approximately $2,450 divided among registered student groups.
• Webmaster position created: The Webmaster Act of 2010 passed in Congress and GSS and a webmaster will be hired this spring to manage all four UOSA websites.
The webmaster will keep sites in compliance with state and local laws requiring groups to post meeting agendas and minutes online, representative Joseph Ahrabizad said in an e-mail.
The webmaster will be paid $9 per hour for 10 hours of work per week. No hiring date has been set.
• Pre-finals week: On Nov. 30, Congress passed a bill to initiate discussion with the Faculty Senate about making pre-finals week easier for students. The bill challenged the Faculty Senate’s March 9, 2009, decision to table any discussion of the policy until 2014. Congress wants to prohibit professors from assigning coursework due during pre-finals week worth more than 5 percent of a student’s grade. According to a Dec. 8 article in The Daily, the Faculty Senate has agreed to meet with Congress to discuss the proposed changes. As of publication, no date has been set.
• Code Annotated Reform Act: Congress voted to create a committee to reorganize and recreate its Code Annotated, UOSA’s set of guidelines, at its Sept. 7 meeting. The committee, which claims members from Congress and GSS, aims to organize the Code Annotated in such a way that anybody can read and recognize, said committee co-chairman and Congress chairman Brett Stidham. The committee will begin work on the revisions after winter break.
• GSS chairman changes: Chairman Silas DeBoer resigned from his position Oct. 12, citing financial reasons. DeBoer posted his resignation on the Senate website. When DeBoer resigned, vice chairwoman Kiersten Sandfoss was unable to perform chair duties due to illness, leading secretary Esther White to fulfill chair duties until a new chair could be elected. Derrell Cox was elected chairman Nov. 7, beating out law and business graduate student Nicholas Harrison and graduate student Susan Adams-Johnson. Cox promised to streamline meetings while not cutting corners.
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bruenig 1 year, 5 months ago
Man, what a list of accomplishments. Can we get more legislation which slightly modify internal student government procedures?
The students love it.