During the fifth legislative session of the semester, the SG Senate debated two bills which reflected opposing sides regarding the potential change in the start of class time proposed by the Faculty Senate before deciding not to support the changes.
Before the resolutions passed to the floor, SG Senate Statistician Joshua Moulton read the results of the survey he had conducted among 195 University students concerning the proposed changes.The results of the survey, which graded agreement with the Faculty Senate’s resolution on a five-point scale, suggested most students had a neutral opinion about the proposed changes. There was a slight tendency toward negative opinions with the surveyed students, but the margin was small.
“To sum it up, there is a slight bend towards opposition, but an even split is within my margin of error,” Moulton said. Moulton calculated a six percent margin of error with 90 percent confidence.SG Resolution No. 12, authored by Speaker Pro-Tempore Drew Prestridge, went to the floor to offer support to the Faculty Senate’s resolution to adopt a new policy for beginning class time.
Prestridge said he supported the resolution to put the University on a time schedule more akin to the way people operate in the real world — on the hour and half hour. “It may be a bit chaotic at first, but once all the kinks are worked out, it could be really beneficial to all students,” Prestridge said.
Other members of the SG Senate were less inclined to follow when the statistics showed student opinion to be, at the very least, mixed.”The whole premise of this Faculty Senate resolution really bothers me,” said SG Speaker Ben Clark. “I wish they would recognize they are teachers first, and LSU always puts its students first.”Sen. Amanda Gammon, College of Arts and Sciences, who co-authored the resolution opposing the Faculty Senate, said she had spoken to her constituents who were outspokenly against the change.
After nearly 45 minutes of debate, the SG Senate voted against the resolution agreeing with the changes.
SGR No. 10, which urged the faculty to abandon their changes, was then brought to the floor following the vote. No time was allotted for debate, and the resolution passed without amendment.–
Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected]
Senate opposes new class schedules
February 12, 2009