This week’s University of Rhode Island Student Senate meeting consisted of heavy debate on student pay and nominations of representatives for Senate.
A bill was proposed by Senator Ryan Menard calling for all University student employees be paid time-and-a-half on all work completed on Rhode Island state holidays and Sundays. All mentions of “Sunday” in the bill were struck after a motion by Senator Andrew Czazasty, passed by 18 affirmative votes and 10 votes in opposition. Senator Menard expressed frustrations with this amendment as it was “a huge slap in the face to the workers at the university.”
Senator Austin Vutech was very vocal in his opposition to the bill on the grounds that the bill handler did not have exact numbers for where the student pay for time-and-one-half would come from, expressing concerns that this might come out of student’s tuitions. Many senators shared Senator Vutech’s position that this pay should not come from tuition, including Student Organization Advisory Review Committee Chair Lexi Evers and Senator John A. Bagley. The bill was eventually tabled for discussion next week.
There were several individuals nominated for representative seats on Student Senate during the meeting. Allison Lantagne, Derek Murphy and Will Morgan were nominated for the position of Off-Campus Representatives. Kaylee Voyett was nominated for the position of At-Large Representative. Dylan Young was nominated for the position of College of Engineering Representative. Nicolette St. Amand was nominated for the position of the College of Health Sciences Representative.
The bill calling to strike the funded or unfunded status from the Student Senate bylaws was passed during this meeting. Senator Patrick Feeney motioned to strike all occurrences of “recognized for more than two consecutive years” from the bill. The motion was passed.