MSA Senate

This week the Student Affairs Committee met with Liz Tummonz, who works for the International Teaching Assistant Program (ITAP), regarding the teaching proficiency of international TAs. She was kind enough to give us a brief run down of the process every TA goes through and an idea of the current limits of the program. At the moment, each department only ever meets the minimum requirements for evaluating the teaching proficiency of potential TAs and any TA with a grade of even a 2 (on a 1-4 scale, 1 being worst) can lead a lab or recitation. As such, we are brainstorming recruitment ideas and contacting department heads in an attempt to gather more student volunteers for the TA evaluation process. As always if you have any questions, comments, gripes, complaints, or statements of appreciation, feel free to contact any member of the committee.

- Paul Whiteside (Student Affairs Secretary)

This week the Student Affairs Committee met to discuss the future of student and faculty webmail addresses as Mizzou’s IT Department are seriously considering outsourcing the programs to either Google or Microsoft (as are the rest of the UM schools in the system, with UMSL leading the way this summer switching over to Microsoft for next semester). Benefits of outsourcing are cost efficiency and a tremendous increase in storage space among other things, however, the process of switching will be a long one, so expect more updates next semester after UMSL’s test run. Also the Student Affairs Committee is scheduled to meet with Liz Timmonz next week to discuss the current system of evaluating the teaching proficiency of international TAs and our ideas for improvement. As always if you have any questions, comments, gripes, complaints, or statements of appreciation, feel free to contact any member of the committee.

- Paul Whiteside (Student Affairs Secretary)

This week the Student Affairs Committee welcomed Juliane Kiehn and Alan Petersen from Campus dining services to fill us in on recent developments regarding the planned food court in the new student center. They also brought samples of two dishes under development - a pulled pork sandwich with house barbeque sauce and a cold asian salad - not necessarily served together, just two dishes currently under consideration. Also, we are still getting trouble from the ID Card office regarding their non-compliance with 47-23 A Resolution to Place Emergency Contact Information on the Back of Student ID Cards. As predicted, implementation is proving to be a long arduous process; however, we remain determined as it is for the good of all students on campus. As always, if you have any questions regarding current issues or have any suggestions for future Student Affairs issues, feel free to contact any member of the Student Affairs Committee.

-Paul Whiteside (Student Affairs Secretary)

This week the Student Affairs Committee met primarily to provide updates on current issues at hand. We have scheduled meetings with Kathy Scroggs and the ID Card office regarding their refusal to print all of our suggested emergency contact numbers as defined in Resolution 47-23. We are also scheduling a meeting with Alan Petersen regarding the removal of the EZ-Charge Lane that we successfully established last semester. As always, if you have any questions regarding any issues we are currently handling or have suggestions for issues we should take care of, feel free to contact any member of the Student Affairs Committee.

- Paul Whiteside (Student Affairs Secretary)

This week the Student Affairs Committee had a joint meeting with Academic Affairs in order to combine our efforts and provide support for some of the issues that Chairwoman Williams is spearheading. Vice-chair Ryan Senciboy has scheduled meetings with the bookstore concerning Game-Day T-Shirts and also with the ID Card office with regard to Senate Bill 47-23 in an effort to resolve any issues they may have before implementation. We also have a meeting scheduled with the board in charge of TA teaching requirements and language proficiency tests on March 12. As always, if you have any questions, comments, gripes, complaints, statements of disbelief and/or appreciation feel free to contact any member of the committee.

- Paul Whiteside (Student Affairs Secretary)

This week the Student Affairs Committee has scheduled meetings with University officials regarding the issues of providing Game Day T-Shirts for football season ticket holders, expanding Tiger’s Lair, and of Teaching Assistants with English as a second language, set for tomorrow and Wednesday 12th respectively. The committee is also organizing a meeting between Rec Center officials and a dance instructor regarding a dispute over the potential uses of a certain room in the Rec Center, during which meeting members of the Student Affairs Committee will act as mediators in an attempt to satisfy both parties. If you have any questions or issues you would like to bring to our attention, feel free to e-mail any of us.

- Paul Whiteside (Student Affairs Secretary)

The Student Affairs Committee this week began reviewing the university’s system of requirements and aptitude tests for Teaching Assistant (TA) positions in an effort to satisfy continual student complaints regarding TA’s  with English as a second language in all areas of study. At the moment we are simply conducting an investigation into the clockwork of the university’s system, so individual TA’s are not subject to any inquest by this committee.

In Student Affairs, Barbra Hammer from Disability Services came in and talked to us about an issue. She would like to see the amount of credit hours drop from 12 to 9 for students with disabilities so they can still be covered under health insurance as a full time student. The bill for adding emergency contact numbers to student identification cards was completed and turned in. It passed Wednesday in senate. Friday the bill was given to Nani Fudge, Cathy Scroggs, and Dr. Mark. Ryan Senciboy emailed Julaine Kiehn looking for reason why there was an increase in points (price) at Emporium. A meeting is in the works.

Student Affairs sat down and wrote legislation about placing emergency contact information on the back of student identification cards. Cathy Murry is taking Ryan Senciboy’s idea of a game day t-shirt and passing it along. We also met with the Student Fee Capital Improvement Committee and like the idea of a crosswalk across East Campus Drive. We are still waiting for the word back on the vote.

In Student Affairs we have set up 3 goals for this semester: getting the emergency contact numbers on the back of Student ID’s, get the crosswalk going on East Campus Drive, and creating a game day t-shirt.