SGA has filled the last open senate seat and is now operating at full capacity halfway into the semester.
The senate voted to confirm a student to the senator of military affairs position at the Oct. 10 SGA meeting. SGA started the semester with six open senate positions, and the senator of military affairs was the final position that needed to be filled.
At the meeting, SGA also voted to create a new ad hoc committee. This committee intends to advocate for students with disabilities and address issues with the current state of accessibility.
Senator of military affairs
Catalina Moheit was confirmed as the senator of military affairs. Moheit, a senior majoring in applied mathematics, is a member of the Latin Student Union and has been an RA for the last three years.
Moheit is not a member of the military but was a part of ROTC for two years and has seen the process of being a student and service member secondhand. She plans to bring that perspective to her new position to connect the military population with the student body as a whole.
Moheit said she felt that the university wasn’t using its resources to its fullest capabilities to support military affiliated students. “Understanding our resources and actually applying them is going to be my top goal,” Moheit said.
According to Veteran and Military Affairs, military-affiliated students make up 27% of the student population at UCCS, and Moheit has goals to recognize and represent them by advocating for a presentation of arms at a minimum of one athletic event per semester, finding ways to support active-duty members through balancing academics and work and connecting with the military community at CU Boulder.
Disability and accessibility ad hoc committee
SGA unanimously voted to create the Disability and Accessibility Committee. The committee was presented by Senator of Innovation Isabella Polombo and aims to give students the opportunity to voice their opinions about accessibility and collaborate on issues regarding accessibility.
“This is a sad thing to recognize, but it’s a reality that must be recognized. Out of the populations [of students], one of the least advocated for is students with disability and accessibility issues, and the problem that’s coming from that is there are not currently too many committees or much student involvement regarding opinions about projects regarding that,” Polombo said.
The committee plans to meet twice a month to discuss matters of accessibility, such as monitoring the progress of a shuttle tracker project that is currently in development.
Students outside of SGA are welcome to join this committee, as Polombo wants to include multiple student opinions and perspectives about supporting accessibility for students with disabilities on and off campus.
In other news:
- There will be no Senate meeting on Oct. 24 because the senate will be participating in a leadership and development event. The Senate also unanimously voted to cancel the senate meeting on Halloween. The next Senate meeting will be on Nov. 7.
- SGA voted to table a resolution for the second week in a row that would set attendance standards for senators to attend a certain number of SGA sponsored events each semester. The resolution was tabled to implement suggestions about making the attendance requirement a range of percentages rather than one percentage to accommodate for variance in the number of events held each semester. Some senators also expressed concern about including a way to get excused absences for emergencies. The resolution will be revisited at the Senate meeting on Nov. 7.
- If the resolution passes, it will be the second one the Senate has created and passed this semester. Regarding bills, the Senate has passed five for the semester so far.
- Senator-at-Large Aiyanna Quinones presented the Sharing Stories Website for Accessibility and Disability, which will act as a forum for students to voice their opinions about disability and accessibility at UCCS. The website is expected to go live by Oct. 31.
- SGA will be inviting Disability Services and the vice chancellors to an upcoming Senate meeting to ask questions and propose solutions for accessibility on campus.
Graphic via Scribe Archives.