USC’s student senate passed several new pieces of legislation on Wednesday, which include recommending a new policy for students to record and photograph lectures, as well as a recommendation to add a new concentration for the civil engineering curriculum.
Recording and photographing lectures
The senate passed a recommendation to create a policy which would allow students to record lectures and photograph lecture materials for academic purposes. This recommendation is sponsored by Sen. Lester Lewis.
According to Lewis, the purpose of this recommendation is for the Office of the Provost to set clear guidelines and standards for when students can record and photograph in class.
This policy would help students keep accurate and up-to-date notes that would make future review of the materials more efficient, the recommendation said.
“This is just basically using this for academic purposes to modernize our policy and our classroom instruction,” Lewis said.
Establishing new engineering concentration
A recommendation was passed to establish a transportation engineering concentration for the civil engineering curriculum. This recommendation was sponsored by Speaker Pro Tempore Daniel Violette.
According to the recommendation, students currently interested in transportation engineering must rely on elective selections, which limits their ability to follow a clear path for their professional interests.
“(Violette and faculty senator Barbara Anderson) kind of gauged that the feasibility of doing this is doable because we already have classes specifically for transportation engineering,” Violette said.
Other institutions currently offer concentrations in transportation engineering including Georgia Institute of Technology, Texas A&M and University of Alabama. The addition of the concentration to USC would strengthen the competitiveness of the civil engineering program, according to the recommendation.
New ad hoc committee created
The senate passed a resolution to establish an ad hoc committee, or a specialty senate sub-committee, with the purpose of researching and revitalizing the role of the student body treasurer. This resolution was sponsored by Sens. Violette, Ash Jacobson and Grant Hunter.
According to Violette, the role of student body treasurer was removed in 2020 and reinstated in 2023. The time gap caused some issues for the treasurer and what the specifics of the role are.
The goal of this ad hoc committee is to look at the USC historical codes and other SEC institutions to determine what the role of the treasurer should be, Violette said.
Other legislation
A bill to amend the constitution of the senate that would allow the senate to elect its own speaker of the senate was not passed. This legislation was sponsored by Sen. Lewis.
Senators feared that if the speaker was elected from within the senate, there would be issues with the speaker remaining unbiased and impartial.
A recommendation to adjust the fall calendar so that the semester could end earlier or be transitioned to virtual after Thanksgiving break also was not passed. This legislation was also sponsored by Sen. Lewis.
Chairperson Kiki D’Apolito sponsored two pieces of legislation regarding the clarification of election communications and campaigning activity for the senate, which were both passed.
These pieces of legislation prevent senators from using their senate resources in campaigns and separate electronic communications for elections into direct communications and social media, according to D’Apolito.
The next meeting of the USC student senate will be held on Jan. 28 in the Russell House Theater.