Undergraduate Student Government unanimously voted for a resolution supporting a current draft of a new University medical amnesty policy Monday night.
The proposed policy, drafted by the president of the University’s Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter, Robert Goldsmith, would allow students to seek medical care for drug abuse or addiction without breaking the University student code of conduct.
Illegal drug use would also not go onto students’ academic transcripts, but repetitive or severe violations would “be determined on a case by case basis,” according to the draft.
Notably, the medical amnesty policy does not protect students from federal or state laws dealing with drug and alcohol use; it only deals with University student codes of conduct.
In other matters, Del-Marcus Goolsby of the undergraduate senate mentioned the School of Media and Communication at the University has a problem with its student media fee.
The student media fee is $18 per semester and currently optional. He said student media has not been getting enough funding from the fee, and officials serving on the Student Media Advisory Committee do not know how much money from the fee has actually been going into Falcon Media.
Committee members “don’t even know … who’s handling the money,” Goolsby said. The Student Media Advisory Committee will likely help oversee the fee starting next semester, he said.
USG also went over:
· Its new election week next spring, which will now run two weeks earlier than it had. Election week will be from March 19 at 8 a.m. to March 22 at 12 p.m.
· Concerns about free speech on campus, since some students became upset after certain groups voiced their opinions on campus, said the assistant to the president, Christina Lunceford, of the Diversity and Inclusion department.
· Food insecurity for University students abroad. Lunceford said there were no sustainable or ongoing solutions to this problem currently. In South Africa, 65 percent of university students are at risk for going hungry, she said.
