On Thursday evening, the student senate passed continuances for the next fiscal year for Lafene Health Center and Counseling Services.
Although Counseling Services has seen a recent decrease in people seeking its services, Madison Brown, privilege fee committee chair and senior in finance, said it would be unwise to decrease Counseling Services’ allocation next year.
Brown said more students are expected to face mental health struggles then because of the pandemic and they could have more need then to use the eight free counseling sessions offered to students per semester.
Sometimes people don’t know they’re in a battle — even a mental health battle — until after they have time to reflect on it, Ashley Grills, privilege fee committee member and sophomore in business administration, said.
The student senate also introduced legislation on a resolution to promote inclusion and provide suggested extra steps regarding the Action Plan for a More Inclusive K-State, discussed last week in student senate because of writings found in the multicultural student center.
“The multicultural student center is supposed to be a place for all voices to be expressed, for all perspectives to be embraced and for productive conversation to be had,” Maggie Billman, speaker pro tempore and junior in pre-professional secondary education, said. “And that didn’t happen.”
However, that event isn’t the only cause for this action.
“And it’s not just about this, it’s about a pattern,” Billman said. “It’s about a trend on K-State’s campus and a culture of change that needs to happen.”
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Speaker of student senate and senior in political science and communication studies Nathan Bothwell said this is a catalyst to encourage the administration to communicate more and hold more discussions on inclusion on campus, as well as make sure the 11-step-plan is moving along at an appropriate, responsive speed.
“As someone who has been here four years, I can tell you there have been similar experiences unfortunately about every year of my college career,” Bothwell said. “This is our way of listing what are pretty reasonable, actionable steps for administration.”
More details, including the full steps of recommendations, can be found online.
Students don’t need to be part of SGA to participate in this discussion — any student interested in the resolution can fill out this Google form to become a co-author to the bill, which will go to leadership on campus upon its passage of the student senate.
In addition, the student senate passed a resolution to change the election date of the speaker of the student senate, reducing the transition time from two weeks to one week.
This bill will help future speakers of the student senate transition into their role, Bothwell said.
The student senate also passed an amendment to clarify the roles of the public relations and communications director positions so there is no confusing overlap in their duties.
Also, the student senate introduced a resolution for closed captioning and live transcriptions to be enabled on Zoom for all K-State classes and university-affiliated events or meetings.
The resolution will aid students who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, have auditory-processing difficulties or have trouble hearing and understanding others on internet-based communications.
The student senate will reconvene Thursday, March 18, in a hybridized format. Members of SGA can meet in the Business Building, while others can join via Zoom. Students interested in attending future meetings can email Bothwell at ndbothwell@ksu.edu.
