A three-hour Student Association Senate meeting Tuesday night resulted in the passing of some major legislation.
Rhett Hobart, SA president, said this meeting stands out from any other meeting he has ever attended.
“It was a great senate meeting,” Hobart said. “It was one of the best I’ve seen during my time here.”
One of the first orders of business was to replace some senators due to scheduling conflicts, and four new senators were welcomed into the senate Tuesday night.
Halston Hales, SA vice president, said he is happy to welcome these new senators into office.
“We are excited to have them because new senators means fresh ideas,” Hales said.
Among the topics discussed at the meeting was the issue of the bullring, the 2012 senior class gift. The bullring project was officially approved at the meeting as well as the budget for its construction.
Hales said the budget for the bullring was set at $15,000. If the senior class is unable to raise this much money, SA will pay the remaining balance.
 
 
Hales said he is sure the senior class will be able to raise all the funds if not more. The approval of the budget was necessary because the senior class had to have the money in its hands before moving forward.
Another resolution discussed was one that, if put into effect, would designate certain places on campus as bicycle dismount zones. These zones would include every cross walk on campus as well as the drill field at certain hours during the day.
He said this idea originated with the Traffic Policy Committee, which sent the idea to senate in order to acquire the opinions of students on campus. This resolution’s success would depend on what the Division of Student Affairs decides to do.
If approved, the resolution would return to the Traffic Policy Committee for a final vote. The bicycle dismount zones would be implemented with safety in mind to help keep bicyclists safe from being hit by cars.
Hales said the number of incidents in which a bicyclist has been struck by a car has increased.
“We’ve been seeing exponential growth in the cases of these accidents,” he said.
The last bit of small legislation that was discussed Tuesday night was the issue of homecoming violation sanctions. This discussion focused on how to handle people who break the rules when it comes to campaigning for elections. Hales said the senate made necessary changes to get homecoming elections in line with all other elections held on campus.
Hobart said the major issue discussed in the meeting involved redistributing the senate. A goal with this move is to make the senate smaller and more selective. Instead of having senate seats based on the different colleges on campus as well as the residence halls and off campus residencies, the senate will be made up of representatives from the colleges only.
Hales said this should make the process of being elected as a senator more fair overall. The number of senators per college would be based proportionally on the size of each college.
Knowing this would most likely result in predominantly upperclassmen senators, Hales said the senate also created four positions strictly for freshmen. He said this would guarantee younger representation and fresher ideas. The senate will also keep the three positions for graduate students that already existed.