Student Government passed a bill at the Senate meeting Wednesday night to create the “temporary position of Statistician to collect the ideas and opinions of the student body.”Sen. Greg Upton, College of Business and author of the bill, said the statistician will “systematically and scientifically” poll the student body to find its opinion on important matters brought up in SG. “If we do a significant study, it will legitimize us, and what we have in our resolution,” Upton said. “We’ll be able to take the findings and use the student body’s opinion when considering any legislation.”Upton said the statistician would not poll the student body every week but would gather information for important topics, such as whether to allow guns on campus. Methods of collecting such information include random samplings, stratified samples or online polls, according to Upton. The position is open to all majors, but Upton said a student majoring in experimental statistics or social sciences would be ideal.Sen. Amanda Gammon, Arts and Sciences, was the only Senator to vote against the bill. “If we have someone to do this job, Senators might feel like they don’t have to get out there as much to talk to their constituents,” Gammon said. SG Speaker Pro-Tempore Drew Prestridge authored an amendment to the bill, which was approved, stipulating a member of SG could not fill the position. “We should have someone unbiased to the entire procedure,” Prestridge said. “And members of Student Government already have so many obligations that they need to focus on.”The senate unanimously approved a resolution to create the Temporary Emergency Academic Impact Committee, which will “identify potential scheduling solutions for future emergency situations in the event the academic calendar and/or class schedules are compromised.”Sen. Parker Wishik, mass communication, authored the resolution. “Everyone remembers what happened during Hurricane Gustav with the Saturday classes and the cancellation of fall break,” Wishik said. “There was extremely short notice, and it seemed like even four years after [Hurricane] Katrina, there wasn’t an adequate plan in place academics-wise.”The committee will be comprised of four members of the student body, one from each year according to hours, two members of the faculty, two members of the student senate, the provost and the University Registrar. Wishik said the student majority on the committee will ensure the student body is fully represented.”There were similar meetings during Hurricane Gustav and student representation was limited to [SG President] Colorado [Robertson] and [SG Vice President] Shannon [Bates],” Wishik said. The Senate unanimously elected Wishik and Sen. Andrew Palermo, University College Center for Advising and Counseling, to serve on the committee. Robertson announced the resignation of Interim Commissioner of Elections Taylor Craft, and SG Speaker Ben Clark announced the resignation of Sen. Sam Oliver, Arts and Sciences.The Senate unanimously elected Sen. Tyler Martin, College of Business, to sit on the Organization Relief Fund Committee. “There is currently only one student sitting on this committee,” said Phoebe Hathorn, international trade and finance sophomore. “We need someone else to come and add student representation.”—-Contact Katie Kennedy at [email protected]