Skip to main content

August 2022 Assembly Report

Senator Kevin Donnelly

Summary: The month of August has been a largely brainstorming month, as my internship from over the summer proceeded through late-August. I've met with other Senators to discuss Inclusion efforts, as well as supporting other pieces of legislation through sponsorship.

Goals: Throughout September, I really hope to begin work on outlining the Intersectionality Coalition. Given that this is now a constitutional responsibility, I'd very much so like to be involved in the process of getting something long-lasting going. This will occur through a series of meetings with other Inclusion-oriented Senators and with necessary executives.

In-Progress Legislation: A long-term piece of legislation that I've done work for is a resolution urging student organizations to complete diversity/inclusion training with the long-term goal of making that a requirement for student organization registration. Work on this has slowed down, but I intend to resume that in September.

Senator Sohan Daniel

Summary: I spent the month of August working with my committee to prepare for Safety month. In addition to this I have been researching on areas for improvement within the University, planning what I would like to accomplish this year.

Goals: My goals for September are to be in contact with the city to see what can be do to improved Patteson drive conditions for pedestrians and drivers. Programming wise I hope to work on having an active shooter presentation via zoom for all students presented by UPD.

In-Progress Legislation: I am currently working on legislation about Improvements on Patteson Drive.

Senator Sarah Zanabli

Summary: Reached out to Alcohol and Other Drug Coalition to see if we can do Naloxone Training again this year

Goals: Follow up on potential virtual Naloxone training, brainstorm legislation

In-Progress Legislation: Still brainstorming

College Senator Lily McKnight

Summary: This past month, Senator Nichols and Senator Daniels and I met with Dr. Gee's student conduct committee and shared some of our ideas on constitutes a "good" Mountaineer.

Goals: My goal is to meet with the Media College's Dean and discuss the plagiarism bill her and I had talked about last year.

Senator Amaya Jernigan

Summary: For the month of August I worked on getting my two pieces of legislation passed. I also have been working on a mentoring program called M-Power which was one of my platform goals!

Goals: I plan to write more legislation about retention in the month of September

In-Progress Legislation: I am working on retention and spaces for diversity to thrive legislation.

College Senator Zachariah Backus

Summary: I have worked with the Student Experience Committee to work on the 10 for 10, as well as helped sponsor legislation written by Senator Jernigan.

Goals: I want to do more programming and partnerships with the Student Experience Committee, as well as work with my college dean Tracy Morris on connecting with those student orgs.

In-Progress Legislation: Working on legislation to implement a university wide anonymous reporting tool for sexual harassment, racism, etc;

College Senator Katie Eyler

Summary: I arranged meetings with the Dean of Eberly (coming up the second week of September) to discuss things he is looking for out of the Eberly College Senator, applied to be part of the Priority Action Team with Office of Health Promotion and Wellness with other members of the Health Committee, and spoke with some of my Eberly Advisors about opportunities not enough students take advantage of so they can be promoted.

Goals: After I meet with the Dean, I am hoping I can use some of his guidance to begin promoting the opportunities Eberly students frequently overlook, attend Priority Action team meetings, and stress the importance of WVUGo and it's educational, physical, and emotional resources during COVID times.

In-Progress Legislation: N/A at the moment. I edited some of Hunter Moore's resolution and am bringing a general list to my meeting with the Dean and will narrow it down from there to see what sticks and is most reasonable.

Senator Ashley Eby

Summary: I extensively read all of the WVU Coronavirus policies and looked into the living conditions of students sent to Arnold Hall for the student experience committee. I’ve also been researching the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and how that impacts students’ academic performance.

Goals: I plan to reach out to University administrators to make sure that there is adequate academic programming for the students in Arnold Hall who test positive. I’d also like to work with administrators to ensure there are ample online tutoring resources for students who are learning virtually.

In-Progress Legislation: I’m researching the best resources and tutoring options for remote learning, and I’d like to work on legislation that focuses on increasing the availability of these resources.

College Senator Tyler Seidel-

Summary: Met with the Student Experience Committee to discuss plans for the fall semester: discussed programming for students in Arnold apartments, discussed ways to maintain the freshman experience. Personal: setup communications with the Fundamentals of Engineering program head.

Goals: Collaborate with the Student Experience Committee to write legislation to create programming that helps retain a sense of normalcy in Arnold Apartments. Organize meetings with various Statler Heads to discuss ways SGA can assist students within Statler. Hopefully meet my intern and find ways to make their SGA experience as beneficial as possible.

In-Progress Legislation: I have not written anything, but I have been brainstorming ideas for programming in Arnold Apartments.

Senator Sarah Ihlenfeld

Summary: I was able to attend the second day of the retreat, where I met with the Inclusion Committee for the first time.

Goals: I am hoping to work on a lot of the ideas that we discussed in our first meeting of the Inclusion Committee. My personal idea is to create a standardized diversity and inclusion curriculum to be included in the 191 first year orientation classes that all freshman take, with the long-term goal of a required diversity and inclusion GEF/ course for all WVU students.

In-Progress Legislation: I am planning to start drafting legislation relating to the diversity and inclusion curriculum idea mentioned above.

Senator Victoria Knotts

Summary: This month I haven't really gotten to work on whole lot of my own work but have helped hunter and amaya on some of their work. I have also been working with sam from title ix on working on continue advocacy and having more communication with students.

Goals: I want to continue to work with sam and title ix to help give better resource information to our students.

In-Progress Legislation: I don't have anything fully in the works yet I am still in the initial stages with work with title ix.

Senator Arpan Kumar

Summary: Start petition to gauge student opinion on return to campus. I’ve been working with student life and media department to create a text notification service for orgs and student groups to utilize.

Goals: My goal is to make sure students’ voices don’t fall through the cracks. This month will be really important in making sure we help uplift student concerns with the newly formed online classes or with the new in-person structure.

In-Progress Legislation: A resolution to have the university create an easy to read infographic that shows where each dollar of our tuition goes. It’s a piece that will serve to promote transparency between the university and students

College Senator Theodore Stackpole

Summary: Worked on questions for 10 for 10 survey, planning for September 3rd Town Hall event and Kahoot questions, initial planning for September Safety month.

Goals: Goals for September: Complete September 3rd Town Hall, Social media safety month promotions and giveaways, Safety awareness each week in September (topics include Medical Amnesty, Sexual Assault Awareness, Pedestrian Safety, Live Safe app), Proclamation on Safety Walk, legislation on mask wearing and COVID safety.

In-Progress Legislation: Safety Walk Proclamation, Mask/COVID mandates enforcement legislation (regarding City of Morgantown).

Senator Joshua Harman

Summary: During the month of August I worked with President Pro Tempore Jones to write legislation advocating the university change the name of the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center.

Goals: During the month of September I plan to meet with other assembly members and a student who came to the Sept. 2 meeting to discuss her concerns with WVU's continued involvement with Sodexo which does business in for-profit prisons.

In-Progress Legislation: I will be working on legislation advocating that WVU discontinue its affiliation with Sodexo.

Senator Tucker Nadeau

Summary: Worked on the creation of the Joint Student Athlete Activation Committee

Goals: Hold our first two meetings of the Joint Student Athlete Activation Committee and plan student athlete focused legislation and events

In-Progress Legislation:

President Pro Tempore Amelia Jones

Summary: I have been in contact with several departments across campus in order to help facilitate a discussion about college affordability and service. I passed a resolution to recommend changing the name of HSC. In addition, I helped the Student Experience Committee with the 10 for 10 survey.

Goals: In September, I will draft and send a letter to the faculty senate regarding college affordability efforts. I will also connect with WV Forward in order to begin the process of the care packages to send to underserved youth in southern WV.

In-Progress Legislation: College affordability and the university's relationship with Sodexo

Senator Micaela Colbert

Summary: I worked on finding more scholarships opportunities or increasing diversity scholarship

Goals: I want to work on diversity training legislation in corroboration with DEI and diversity ambassadors, working on retention, finding a place for students of color

In-Progress Legislation: Looking into changing the anonymous report system through DEI, combining all the support systems into one, writing legislation

Senator Colton Nichols

Summary: I have been working on planning out all of my legislation that I am going to be writing throughout the semester and next semester. I have also been reaching out to other students and I am going to soon be reaching out to student orgs and different centers on campus to discuss the needs of other students on campus. I have also been working on research for some of my expected legislation that I will be putting out but most of my time has been spent planning out my upcoming semester for SGA and getting prepared to work on legislation or reach out to others that could help me create my legislation. I also plan on reaching out to university officials here shortly about some of the legislation that I will be creating to get their feedback and input but also to calculate the feasibility on their end of such change being able to be implemented. One of the big things I am excited for is to provide SGA with implicit bias training soon which I will really get the ball rolling on once myself and the other diversity ambassadors get our training completed so that we can facilitate the training

Goals: I want to complete or get close to completing some of my planned legislation.

In-Progress Legislation: I am working on a Sodexo bill and Implicit Bias Training