The major point of business that came up at the senate meeting on Monday was a motion to approve amendments to The Bylaws of the Rensselaer Union Executive Board. Passing unanimously, the motion was presented by the E-Board’s Policies Committee Chairperson Anissa Choiniere ’20. According to Choiniere, the largest change was to have the chairperson of each joint Senate and E-Board committee be nominated by both the grand marshal and president of the Union together and be confirmed by a majority vote of both the Senate and E-Board. She said that all of the other changes already existed in the The Bylaws of the Rensselaer Union Student Senate and were therefore just updates to make the E-Board bylaws consistent with current practices.
In the Student Life Committee report, Chairperson Hannah Merrow ’18 talked about the revisions to the Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights & Responsibilities. She said that the major areas of contention currently are the Good Samaritan policy, the policy on protests, and the dean of students’ intention to update the Student Handbook more regularly.
Facilities and Services Committee Chairperson Nancy Bush ’19 also presented on the petition to bring The Flying Chicken to the Union. She informed the Senate that according to Matt Mueller, the general manager of Sodexo at RPI, it will most likely not be possible to bring it to the Union as The Flying Chicken’s declaration of bankruptcy prevents Sodexo from working with it.