At Monday’s Undergraduate Student Government meeting senator’s brought back feedback from constituents about the tobacco-free policy for the University’s campus.
“I think that the purpose of this discussion was to bring together all of the data that we’ve been collecting over the past month, month and a half,” said Danielle Parker, Vice President for USG.
Parker said that one of the jobs of the USG senators is to go to groups on campus and say what might be happening with the policy and asking for their opinions.
“Tonight’s discussion was bringing forward everything that they’ve heard and saying this is why or why not this is a good or a bad thing,” said Parker.
Parker said that hearing all of the opinions is very good when it comes to finalizing the decision as a whole.
“Our next steps is really just looking for senate leadership to put forth a resolution that’s going to say we support this or we don’t support this because of all the stuff we’ve talked about over the past month.”
Parker said that hopefully in the next two to three meetings USG will have their stance on the policy finalized.
USG is one of five constituent groups on campus and each group gets to say whether or not they support the policy.
Parker said that all five groups are very important when making policy decisions and changes.
Because of this Parker said, “Whether we vote to support or to not support, that’s going to be a pretty big deal to the Board of Trustees, to President Mazey, to whoever this is going to.”
“I think that what we decide really does carry a lot of weight because what USG decides is a reflection of the whole undergraduate student body,” said Parker.
Parker said that USG has three meetings left of the semester so they hope to have their decision made and finalized by their last meeting.
In addition to USG, there are three other constituent groups on campus that still need to make their decision.
In addition to the tobacco-free policy, a new program called the elector program was discussed.
The elector program is through the Women’s Center.
“They’re hoping to come to campus on Saturday, Feb. 27 and it’s basically a student government program that will focus on the details of running for a student government position here at BGSU,” said Parker.
Parker said that some of the discussion will focus on those who identify as women and the experience that they have had in student government positions and the advice that they can give to other women. She also said that another goal of this is to get more people involved in student government.
