By Jordan Beaubois
(From left to right) Jessica Baker, Gabe Hay, Fiona Walsh, Lucas Baker, Grant Bricking posing for The Saint after the Senate meeting – Photo by Jordan Beaubois
The meeting was called to order and began with a brief presentation from the Aquinas Chemistry Society (ACS) by its president Noah Rielly to request funding to attend a national conference in San Diego, California. The conference is meant to be a unique opportunity for undergraduates, graduates, professors, and other professionals to meet, congregate, offer internships, and network with one another. Aquinas College has attended this conference the last four years and is usually offered annually for chemistry students in Aquinas. In cordiality the funding requests that Rielly and the rest of ACS were requesting are to be kept confidential until a public announcement has been made.
Following the closure of this section of the meeting was the section for the immediate concerns which took up the remainder of the Senate’s meeting time. Some of the immediate concerns raised were that a rumor around campus was spreading that Aquinas College was in itself in financial distress. The Senate professionally responded that they are not at liberty to discuss financial matters. The following concern was that there have been issues involving class scheduling especially now that many professors have left Aquinas college such as; English Professor Jennifer Dawson, English Professor Michelle DeRose and Political Science Professor Molly Patterson. The senate emphasized that they take these concerns very seriously, and would look into the scheduling issues taking place.
The largest concern brought to the Senate was the continuous issue of car break-ins on campus taking place both at the Saint Rosa and Hruby parking lots. Some of the participants at the event were even affected by these break-ins personally, and shared their experiences dealing with rude staff and elongated wait times to receive the footage of the break-ins, which delayed their insurance claims. Apparently the non-violent crimes involving the automotives took place last week on Oct. 28 and 29 and Nov. 6. Some participants included the mention that the cameras were not able to view the entirety of certain parking lots.
Afterwards another concern was that there have been some issues at the registrar’s office and even some credit mismanagement in regards to graduating. A similar concern was that HR is not fully staffed which led into the discussion of the college employment. Furthermore this was transitioned into the question of the Health & Wellness Center in Aquinas, and how grossly underfunded and understaffed.
The final complaint reached before the end of the meeting was the request that nutritional and caloric information be placed at Wege and the Moose along with gluten-free options. This itself led into a particularly interesting discussion on how there is currently an app in the works to see what food will be listed in Wege at a given day ahead of time. The app is fully functioning, but not yet to be released due to undisclosed reasons. The meeting was adjourned slightly after the closing time of 1:30 p.m.
The Saint 