In an abbreviated meeting, members of the Associated Student Body Student Senate gave their opinions on resolutions to appear before the Spring 2014 Student Senate California Community College General Assembly.
Student Senate President Kenneth Hinton, Vice President Tamara Dunning, Director of Legislative Affairs Ross Rayala, adviser Tanika Byrd, and Dean of Student Development Manuel Perez will attend the General Assembly, which will be at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott.
The board voted to strongly support a resolution which urges the state legislature to create legislation that requires California community colleges to make an Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous program available through their counseling departments.
The Senate also voted to strongly support resolutions recognizing that free speech should not be confined to “free speech zones,” that the SSCCC “promote and advocate legislation that promotes alternative energy” and to support a resolution to have a district-wide official transcript.
Dunning supported the alternative energy resolution.
“This is not just new technology,” Dunning said. “This is green technology.”
“I don’t find it economically feasible,” Director of Finance Jorge Riley said.
“Are you saying that for the college or are you saying it’s not economically feasible for the entire state of California?” asked Hinton.
“I’m saying that for the entire state of California,” Riley replied.
The Senate voted to strongly oppose a resolution introduced by Santa Barbara City College that would create “a proportional representation system for elections.”
“A proportional representation system for elections sounds quite a bit to me like an affirmative action,” Dunning said. “For me, the students vote and I don’t think it’s right of us to tell students, ‘You have to elect this many people of this class.’”
“I feel like I don’t have enough information from Santa Barbara City College about why they made this resolution or what this resolution intended,” CAEB President Jeremy Diefenbacher said. “I think we should have no opinion. I don’t think we should oppose it necessarily because we don’t know what it is.”
The Senate voted to oppose a resolution establishing an area on campus for prayer and meditation and voted to have no opinion on a resolution to reform the Cal Grant A Award, which allows the award to be on reserve for students for two academic years.
The board plans to get through the rest of the resolutions at next week’s meeting.