The Senate met again this week in preparation for the upcoming government elections.
On Sunday, senators reviewed topics of discussion at last week's meeting and went over white paper updates, new events and the voting platform and procedure for September 6 and 7.
Elections will be held on Thursday and Friday for five first-year Senators, five Allocations Board Members and a Vice President of Student Life. Voting this year features a more streamlined method of access. Instead of going through e-services, the elections will be held through Google Forums. An email will go out to all students that will allow them to access the forum through their Gmail accounts.
In addition, the government needs a new Sergeant at Arms. This will be decided outside of the general election: the Executive Board will slate a candidate, who in turn must be approved by a two-thirds vote from the Senate.
For the November presidential election, senators talked about holding discussion forums under the Campus Climate white paper and getting College Republicans and Democrats involved to have open and serious conversations about political issues. They talked over the possibility of having other student organizations host alongside Student Government members.
Upcoming events included Life After DePauw, this weekend's tailgate and the student government retreat.
Life After DePauw will feature a panel of five recent alumni. Now continuing their educations in law and medicine, these DePauw graduates will talk about their experiences and give advice to current DePauw students. It will be held in Watson Forum from 4 to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 6. Vice President of Academic Affairs Carroll Bible will head the panel.
Also coming this week is the Tailgate Gold Zone Cookout preceding the first home football game vs. St. Olaf College. Tailgate's objective is bringing students together in one common area and advocating DePauw spirit. There will be music, games and food for a capacity of 800 people. Tailgate begins at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 8. The game itself is outside Blackstock Stadium at 1 p.m.
The student government retreat will be held Sunday, Sept. 9 from 1 to 4 p.m. All student government members across the four chambers will attend and the event is open to the public.
Experiential Practicum advocates found a faculty advisor willing to teach a course adjacent to internships that would be part of the program.
Senators working on the sustainability white paper found that DePauw was already doing a significant amount to save water. Some further ideas of improvement were streamlining the current water system, opening recycling dumpsters to fraternities and sororities, looking into campus interactions with TerraCycle for methodical disposal and spreading awareness about DePauw's energy conservation efforts.
The first plan for campus climate advocates is to advertise campus climate and make sure it's hospitable at all times. Branding and publicizing on Twitter is a key objective, as is addressing upperclassmen about DePauw's alcohol climate and providing guidance about it to first-year students.
An idea brought to the attention of senators was revamping the course registration system. The new version would ideally include a "shopping cart" format of choosing classes. Additionally, it would alert students if a class opened up or allow them to be placed upon a waiting list and to see where they rank on a waiting list. Many of these ideas are discussed in detail in A White Paper Concerning Student Frustration with the Class Scheduling System passed in December 2010.
Also sitting in on the meeting were Parliamentarian Marjorie Daily, Director of Allocations Stewart Burns, Advisor Dorian Shager, Sergeant at Arms candidate Medjine Nzeyimana and Allocations Board candidate Brooke Curtis.
The Senate also discussed white paper briefs.
There was no update for Kaplan Prep Courses.