The Student Health Center will no longer offer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Student Body President Alex Harrell said during a student senate meeting.
Harrell announced last week that the single-dose vaccine would be available to students through the Student Health Center. However, the CDC recommended a pause on the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on April 13 due to reports of blood clots.
Harrell still encouraged students to receive a vaccine.
“We trust our health center. We trust them to be doing what's right. We're following CDC guidelines. They said pull it, we pulled it, you know. We don't want to be putting students in danger and that's first and foremost our goal. We want to get them vaccinated, we want to get them vaccinated safely so we return to normalcy so I would, I would just tell students to get vaccinated, still,” Harrell said.
The Student Health Center is offering other vaccines, such as the Pfizer vaccine, to students as well.
Also during the last student senate meeting of the semester, a vote on a bill proposing the removal of filing fees for student senate and executive office positions was postponed until the next student senate session in the fall to allow for further debate and potential amendments.
Opponents of the bill had previously argued that fees make sure candidates running are committed to serving the position. Speaker of the Senate Morgiana McDevitt confirmed that in the past student senators who had paid the fee had been elected only to resign weeks into their term.
“I think it's not our place as the student senate to determine the legitimacy of the candidate. That's up to the student body itself, and I as a student senator have full faith in my constituents that they are able to make a conscious, reasonable decision,” student senator Noah Glasgow, a first-year criminology and criminal justice student and co-sponsor of the bill, said.
An amendment to the proposed bill allowing potential candidates to instead collect signatures rather than pay a fee was voted down.
A bill to support the 'Aim to Rename' campaign by the university NAACP chapter was adopted. The campaign is concerned with renaming buildings on campus.
An amendment to the bill that would specifically rename the Thomas Cooper Library and Sims and Thornwell residence halls, as opposed to all of the buildings named by the NAACP, was struck down in a 40-8 vote.
First-year political science and psychology student Anna Kelley, sponsor of the amendment, said the student senate should take the time to debate each building name individually.
“My issue is not with the goals of the legislation, but the outline procedure or lack — or rather lack thereof, needed to achieve said goals,” Kelley said.