The Undergraduate Student Government Downtown Senate on Friday appointed a new senator for the College of Health Solutions and discussed ways to make the Downtown Phoenix campus safer and more environmentally friendly.
Nickita Prince was appointed to represent the College of Health Solutions. She recently switched from the College of Nursing and Health Innovation to the health-solutions college, and said she wants to redirect her focus to get involved with the downtown community.
“I do a lot of volunteer work and I do a lot of networking and I just want to be very active with the students and know my student body,” Prince said.
She said she believes being a senator for USGD would give her the chance to directly impact the community.
USGD President Frank Smith said he plans to meet with Michael Thompson, who was recently appointed as chief of the ASU Police Department, and discuss how to implement the “next steps” in making the Downtown Phoenix campus a safer environment for students.
In addition to that, the Dion Initiative for Child Well-Being and Bullying Prevention, formed by Phoenix’s first lady, Nicole Stanton, has partnered with ASU in order to expand awareness of campus bullying.
An application, developed by graduate students, was introduced by Stanton as a method of stopping cyberbullying in its tracks. By logging into their child’s Facebook account, Smith said, parents will be able to easily know if he or she is being harassed online and why exactly it is happening, Smith said.
Smith also spoke about adding more sustainable resources around campus, including water filters and the option for every office to print double-sided.
He is figuring out how much it would ultimately cost and the most efficient ways to fund those resources, he said.
Vice President of Policy Sally Lopez is planning on setting up a lobby date at some point next semester for students to come and voice their opinions on certain issues.
The details of the event are still being decided, but Lopez is collaborating with Abigail Polito, the government-relations liaison at ASU, to put it together.
Samuel Kinsey, representing the School of Letters and Sciences, is working toward a change in how students use the printers at the library in the University Center.
Kinsey talked with Joseph Williams, director of the Downtown Phoenix campus deskside and classroom support, about the possibility of allowing students to use a “print now and pay later” plan.
Although the idea is still in the planning stages, it would mean students could immediately print without waiting to be charged on their account.
Some of the most substantial pieces of legislation on the spotlight right now are the PAC 12 Initiative and Senate Resolution III.
The PAC 12 Initiative is intended to reduce the amount of sexual assaults by educating students. The goal is to incorporate all the colleges within the Pac-12 Conference standing behind the initiative.
Senate Resolution III asserts that USGD fully supports the overturning of the ban on same-sex marriage in Arizona, as USGD does not allow any discrimination of any kind, according to the USGD Constitution.
USGD is aiming to, if possible, have ASU as a whole represent this standpoint, meeting with senators from the other campuses to ask them to vote on it as well.
Nearly two-thirds of ASU students voted in favor of supporting the resolution, according to feedback forms received through social media. USGD is looking for a minimum of a two-thirds majority to keep the legislation, Senate President James Bunting said.
“Even if it isn’t passed on all the campuses, I do believe it’ll pass for Downtown as long as our polling numbers continue to be for it,” Bunting said. “It’s a positive statement we can make at the campus, and even as a school.”
Contact the reporter at Oren.Simchy-Gross@asu.edu
