The SA meeting for Feb. 24, 2020 included a presentation on Education ROC, updates on the housing lottery, and a discussion of the initiative to make SAD lamps available to the UR community.
Education ROC
Associate Director of Recruitment for the Simon Business School Joseph Sayre presented Education ROC, a program dedicated to improving the city of Rochester’s retention rate for students graduating from UR.
Currently, according to Sayre, Rochester only retains 36% of college graduates. (Though this number may be inflated, as it includes students who remain in Rochester for their Masters or Ph.D.)
Campus Philly is a nonprofit organization that aims to increase this number, thereby fueling economic growth in the northeast. They do so by generating social and career connections while also examining how Rochester’s policies may be acting as a deterrent to students who would otherwise stay in Rochester. He gave the example of Rochester’s tax rates, which might discourage students from areas with significantly lower tax rates.
Sayre announced that Collegefest, an annual internship fair, will occur on Sept. 12 at Parcel 5.
Sayre quoted Rochester mayor Lovely Warren as saying, “If you look at any satellite or anything that goes to space, there’s a piece of Rochester in that.” He argued that Rochester has several well-paying entry-level jobs for recent college graduates, particularly in science and technology.
Housing lottery
Senator senior Tayfun Sahin announced he met with the Housing Lottery Task Force to discuss the order students select housing in. While the possibility of incoming juniors being the first to select housing was discussed, Sahin said, it was decided that either sophomores or seniors would be the first instead.
Campus Services Committee
Campus Services Committee Chair junior Alexander Pavlicin announced that 30 Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) lamps will be rolled out to the UR community March 16, and will be available in the Common Connection office and elsewhere. In order to acquire a lamp, students should bring their UR IDs to the pick up location. Their name and email will be noted, and they will then be allowed to borrow a lamp for one month. Pavlicin said that the Campus Services Committee is still looking into where else the lamps could be made available.
Senator sophomore and Academic Affairs Committee Chair Ian Krager expressed concern with provisions in the All-Gender Restrooms resolution that ask schools other than the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering college (Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business, and Warner School of Education) to consider implementing all-gender restrooms on their own campuses.
Krager took issue with releasing the report before alerting the administration of those schools of its contents. In response, Pavlicin said that the deans that the committee spoke to mentioned that graduate faculty and staff expressed support for the implementation of all-gender restrooms.
Student Life Committee
Student Life Committee Chair and senator sophomore Lea Thome said she has been having conversations with SA president senior Jamal Holtz, senator first-year Devon Rogers, and Sahin about creating a website listing all of the financial aid resources available to students.
International Student Affairs Committee
Speaker for the Senate junior Micah Greenberg (who is senior staff for the Campus Times) announced that former International Student Affairs Committee Chair senior Kapambwe Chalwe has resigned his position.
Holtz announced that the Annual Diversity Conference will be held on March 22.
Executive
Chief of Staff sophomore Lilly Hutton announced that the executive council is looking through 5K challenge submissions.
Holtz announced that the application for the Undergraduate Flag Subcommittee, created to advise the multi-campus flag lounge advisory committee, is now open.
New Business
The motion to approve the Bill to Create Expectations for Communications from the Speaker of the Senate to the Student Body at Large was passed. This bill doesn’t change the bylaws or create an enforceable rule. It is meant to assert the belief that the Speaker of the Senate should communicate more with the rest of Senate on communications sent to the campus community.
