STORY BY BETH LEVALLEY
Student Senate tabled a motion to allow four students in the science education department to go to Reno, Nevada for the Association for Science Teacher Education International Conference.
These students have all been researching in the realm of education for at least a year, and they will take part in at least one of the presentations. Two of the students are newer and will replace the older students once they graduate.
Senior Neal Patel has been to the conference before and finds the conference extremely beneficial.
“Last year, I was one of three students there, which means the rest of the people attending were educators,” Patel said. “I got to interact with future colleagues.”
Patel has been researching elementary science education for three and a half years.
While the Senate agreed that the information discussed at this conference would be beneficial to students, professors and the Department of Education as a whole, Senate debated whether the student body should be funding this endeavor.
At the beginning of the semester, Student Senate had a discussion about fiscal responsibility and specified what student fees should be spent on.
“We’ve been leaning towards funding what will impact the student body as a whole,” Treasurer Matusik said.
While any student can request funding from Student Senate, student organizations are given priority for funding.
This conference is tailored toward benefitting academic life and will also directly benefit professors. Because of this, senators wondered if the School of Education would provide any funding for the conference.
The students that would be attending the conference are planning to present their findings to the School of Education, and they are potentially working with the TEDx Drake club to present a talk.
With this information, Senate still was not satisfied that it would impact Drake enough to spend $1,856. Ultimately, Senate decided to table the motion until research had been done about other possible funding.
As the Democratic debates get closer, Senate had a discussion about how to act and receive feedback from students, the media and the community.
Student Senate is putting on two events around campus, “Pancakes and Politics” and a debate watch party.
“As you’ve seen in the media, other universities haven’t catered to the student body, and there have been some protests,” Pres. Kevin Maisto said. “We’re lucky (the) administration is really trying to do as much as they can for us.”
O’Hea, a leader for these political events, echoed Maisto’s words.
“Other universities haven’t really taken advantage of this, and I really don’t know why,” Sen. O’Hea said.
Maisto continued warning Student Senate members of the possibility that the media will contact them, asking them to be more aware of their actions than on any other day.
“I know I’m trying to remain calm, but I’m like, bursting on the inside,” Maisto said.
