The following covers the meeting on Oct. 16.

CLIMATE CHECK

Sophomore senator Oliver Chapin-Eiserloh suggested SGA send reminders to students in the future about days in which there is no class. According to Chapin-Eiserloh, there were students on campus Friday who seemed not to know there was no class. (Chapin-Eiserloh is a photographer for the Trinitonian.)

Sophomore senator Noor Rahman questioned the timeline of the machine that is blocking the road behind the Bell Center.

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS PRESENTATION

Deneese Jones, vice president of Academic Affairs, and Duane Coltharp, associate vice president for Academic Affairs concerning curriculum and faculty development, joined SGA to hear students’ thoughts about Pathways.

According to Coltharp, the main issue students have with Pathways appears to be about accessibility of courses and the ability to fulfill some Pathways requirements, like the interdisciplinary cluster.

SGA members raised their concerns about the interdisciplinary cluster, specifically confusion about the intention of that aspect of Pathways and inability to fulfill it. Junior Giselle Britt attended the meeting as a constituent and expressed her concerns as well.

Ultimately, complaints were primarily about the difficulty of completing the cluster and lack of availability of some courses, Coltharp addressed the concerns and explained that there are two ideas that the University Curriculum Council (UCC) is looking at to resolve the issues students are having. Coltharp hopes to have both ideas up and running in time for advising in November.

The first idea benefits the advising process. The UCC aims to create a program to be able to tell which courses are offered for each semester and with how many spaces, both for that year and historically.

The second idea is a change to time blocks. The proposed model includes additional 75-minute slots on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The model has not yet been approved by the UCC.

Coltharp added that the registrar is planning to implement a software that automates the scheduling process.

NEW ELECTION SCHEDULE

Senior and president Ty Tinker reminded the Senate that the election schedule for all student organizations is changing and that the next time the campaign, it will be for a single semester term in order to get on track with the new schedule.

OTHER THINGS

Tinker explained that he was offered free movie tickets to the opening of an unspecified horror movie.

Sophomore senator Esther Omegba followed up on a concern she raised last meeting about parking during football games. Assistant chief of TUPD Pete Perez got back to Omegba with information about how TUPD officers direct traffic and visitors to the lot off Shook Avenue to alleviate over-parking in the lots near campus.