On Wednesday night, USC’s 106th Student Senate held their weekly meeting.
Sen. Grace Zimmermann, chairwoman of the Academics Committee, announced a meeting tomorrow with the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity. During this meeting, she hopes to discuss ways for students to further establish academic integrity.
“You copy ‘I will practice personal and academic integrity’ and then sign your name,” Sen. Zimmerman suggested as an idea for improving integrity on exams. She hopes to have this plan start on this semesters' final exams.
Reactions to the plan were negative from some senators, with arguments that the plan would become similar to habitually writing one’s name on the top of a test. It was also argued that this was redundant because the Carolinian Creed already states, “I will practice personal and academic integrity.”
Support for the plan came from multiple senators in the College of Nursing, who voiced this was already protocol in their nursing classes.
Student Body President Lindsay Richardson spoke about the University's plans to make resources more available to and affordable for students. Richardson suggested open source textbooks, a free and digital way for students to read for their classwork, as well as MOOCs, free online classes.
Ryan Harman, the student body treasurer, sought interest for a budget dialogue for Saturday in which senators, as well as ordinary students, could talk about the student budget. The official budget is due to be established on Feb. 4.
Sen. Phillip Allan, Chairman of the Powers and Responsibilities Committee, proposed a bill to amend the Senate vacancy application process. Currently, under the Student Government codes, “no applications shall be received and no applicants shall be confirmed between filing day for student body elections and the inauguration of new senators.” Filing occurred Tuesday and Wednesday and Allan stated that inauguration is usually around the time of spring break.
Allan’s proposal is to amend the current statement to read, “Any applications received between the filing day for student body elections and the inauguration of new senators must be confirmed by a two-thirds majority of senators in office.”
This would expand the time in which the Power and Responsibilities Committee could conduct their usual process of interviewing new candidates and would allow the Senate to confirm or deny these new candidates.
The second and final bill proposed during the meeting was to allocate funds to the Academic Team, BOND, College Libertarians, Gamecock Bhangra and NAACP. The Senate Finance Committee proposed the bill.
Sen. Allan’s bill will be referred to all committees and the Finance Committee’s bill will be referred back to the Finance Committee. Both will be read and contested at the next meeting.