The Student Government Senate spent nearly an hour of Wednesday’s four-hour meeting – the longest of the semester – discussing a resolution that would urge the Faculty Senate to reconsider its decision to allow professors to factor attendance into grades.
At the end of the night, voting was postponed until next week.
Lane Pace, co-author of the bill and University Center for Advising and Counseling senator, said Faculty Senate didn’t listen to students.
“I felt like we were shunned as students, and we didn’t have a voice,” Pace said.
Another co-author of the resolution, College of Engineering Senator Karla Frias, said she conducted a survey of student opinion of the Faculty Senate resolution. The majority of the 107 students she polled did not support it, Frias said.
But other senators said though their constituents disagree with the attendance policy, they will not echo the students’ thoughts.
“I believe sometimes we might know better than [our constituents] do,” said University Center for Freshman Year Senator Christian Glorioso.
He also argued that opposing the Faculty Senate gives SG a “bad reputation.”
The SG Senate also passed a resolution to urge the allocation of part of a $5 performing arts fee to the LSU Speech and Debate Team after an “investigation” into how the fees are spent.
According to Speech and Debate Team members, the University’s team has the lowest budget in the state.
“I think McNeese is three times our budget,” said College of Humanities and Social Sciences Senator Brian Baudoin.
SG also unanimously passed a resolution to urge “the Louisiana legislature to pass House Bill No. 407, The Bullying Prevention Act.”
College of Science Senator Natalie Mills said she supports the bill because her autistic brother was bullied, and the perpetrator wasn’t punished.
“Because of that, his classmates felt he was different, and he didn’t deserve to be at school or be alive … and the school did nothing about it,” she said.
 
____ Contact Danielle Kelley at [email protected]