The Racial Minority Senator special election will be held on Dec. 10, according to Student Union secretary Taylor Fu ’21. The candidates running are Sampada Pokharel ’23, Kurtis Lee ’22 and Ishaan Khurana ’23.
Executive Board has been working on attendance, according to Vice President Kendal Chapman ’22. President Simran Tatuskar ’21 is making a more comprehensive outline for what is considered an excusable absence, according to Chapman.
Senator Dane Leoniak ’20 said “attendance should be a problem that solves itself” because people who do not want to put in the work will be impeached and then only people who are paying attention will run in a special election.
Price said that he has ideas for an amendment that would pay club chairs to incentivize attendance at Senate meetings and lead to fewer elections with candidates running unopposed. He said that the money would be coming from the student activities fund. Coles, who is not in favor of paying club chairs, said “the first step is that they need to push themselves before they reward themselves.” Coles said that he wants to increase accountability by potentially reinstating mandatory office hours for senators.
Senator for International Students Shuorui “Capo” Wang ’22 and Senator for the Myra Kraft Transitional Year Program Erik Lambrecht ’23 each have three unexcused absences, so they were emailed that if they did not attend the next meeting, the Senate would move forward with impeachment, according to Chapman.
Chapman said that the relationship between Senate and E-Board hasn’t been “at its prime” and asked the Senate what they believe they should be doing to improve communication. Senator Oliver Price ’20 said that it would be helpful if Chapman had a more explicit E-Board summary and if they could have more detail. Senator Sagar Punjabi ’21 said it would be good if E-Board could come in every week, to which Senator Joseph Coles ’22 added that it would be good if a member of E-Board came in every week and a senator went to E-Board every week. Senator Scott Halper ’20 said that he was hoping that Tatuskar would come to the Senate meeting and speak when the judiciary case brought against her was happening.
Halper said that he is talking to area coordinators in the Department of Community Living about alleged mold in Deroy Hall. The area coordinators received a number of reporters from students complaining about mold, according to Halper, and they checked the rooms that were reported and there “weren’t any signs of mold growth.” Halper said that the humidity level was below “50,” which is a benchmark. An ozone machine, a device that they use for killing mold, was used and Halper said that he doesn’t know if they used the machine to make residents feel more at ease or if it was because there was actually mold.
Halper went to Deroy and said that he saw “stuff” that could be mold on the walls but also said that he doesn’t have any expertise in identifying mold. Punjabi reaffirmed that Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Tim Touchette has someone on campus who said that there was “no indication from mold anywhere,” and the ozone machine kills off all organic growth, so there shouldn’t be anything now even if there had been.
DCL said that the Union can order kitchen supplies for Polaris Lounge, according to Senator Krupa Sourirajan ’23.
The bathrooms in East are locked because people have come into the building and used them, so they will be reviewing that, according to Senator Trevor Filseth ’20.
