The Student Senate met on Wednesday, Oct. 28, covering topics such as renaming bus routes and educational resource allocation.
The Matthew Gaines Bus Resolution, which aimed to rename a bus route after Senator Matthew Gaines, was reintroduced on the floor after being referred to the Constituency Affairs Committee during the Student Senate’s Sept. 30 meeting. A survey was sent out to the student body on the matter. Constituency Affairs Chair Clarissa Rodriguez, said 61 percent of respondents answered in favor of the renaming the bus route.
“There was a high percentage of the student body that did vote yes in order to change the bus route name in order to honor Senator Matthew Gaines,” Rodriguez said.
A debate was held over the lack of access student senators had to the survey data and the inaccuracy an open survey may cause.
“The poll is still out, and we have attached a number to this amendment that is liable to change. As the authors have admitted, it is still open,” Finance chair John Teague said. “This has just been, from one end to the other, not a clean go, and it’s very disappointing, and I encourage everyone to vote no on this resolution.”
Senator Sam Jefferis said the survey was reliable and usable for the resolution.
“This is probably as best as we can get unless we want to do a full-scale marketing effort, and I don’t think the survey results will change very much even if we did,” Jefferis said. “If you look further at the data, we only had 14.7 percent say no in response to our suggestion to change a bus route to Senator Gaines, and a quarter were roughly indifferent, so I don’t believe that the survey was conducted in bad faith.”
The resolution passed with a vote of 44 in favor and 10 against.
Another piece discussed was the “Open Educational Resources Bill” introduced by Legislative Affairs Chair Josh Feldman, which aims to decrease textbooks’ cost.
“Purchasing or renting new or used textbooks which are required or recommended as instructional materials all constitute an additional cost for many working tertiary students,” the resolution reads. “Open Source Textbooks provide professors an alternative, inexpensive and customizable textbook option that maintains the integrity of a hard copy textbook.”
During the meeting, the Student Senate also awarded the Core Values Award to John C. Otto, a former Texas legislator and Class of 1970.