Student Council discussed project funding, sustainability education and other community concerns at its general body meeting Tuesday.
Chief Technology Officer Eric Xie, a second-year Engineering student, will take on the issue of funding for entrepreneurship projects. He said Social Entrepreneurship at the University offers a summer grant and HackCville, a community of self-motivated students, also provides grants for such social entrepreneurship projects.
The body also discussed an anonymous online post about sustainability education. Third-year College student Lizzie Main, who is on the on the Sustainability Committee, said she will work on finding a location on Grounds for sustainability education during this upcoming summer.
“The ideal thing at this time is to find a suitable spot on Grounds because the office is kind of faraway,” Main said.
The student committee also addressed the issue of creating a napping room, following a previous survey assessing the student body’s interest in having a centrally located nap room on Grounds.
Student Council President Emily Lodge, a third-year Batten student, said the council received a lot of responses from the student body concerning this issue, but the question is how to incorporate the large data into creating a good plan.
“There just needs to be a concrete plan as to where we think we would like it, who would pay for it, would it be bean bags [or] would it be cots,” Lodge said. “A full plan would be great.”
The individual committees on council also exchanged reports and gave updates.
Second-year College student Katie Brandon, from the Legislative Affairs Committee, said the current top two priorities for the committee are website voter confirmation and solidification of the voter registration campaign by the June 1. She said the committee will have resident advisors trained to be able to register voters during summer orientations.
“We will have folks at the move-in days and then also during the welcome week to give talks at different dorms,” Brandon said. “We will have first-years to be trained at the dorms to be able to know how to register [students] to vote, which will also move them into the University community.”
Second-year College student Gabby Moreth said the Diversity Engagement Committee participated in a conversation with other organizations in response to the chalkings targeting minorities and transgender individuals last week. Moreth said she saw a post on the SpeakUp U.Va. Website addressing the negligence of the Student Council in regard to this controversial racial event.
“There wasn’t too much about besides the news statement and interviewing people,” Moreth said. “There really was not much follow-ups and we should do stronger things in the future by participating more.”
Lodge said the committee will work with the communication team to see how exactly they want to go about addressing similar issues.
Read More
Student Council hears from Director of Diversity Education, talks parking fines
By Vyshnavi Tatta | 9 hours agoLaw Rep. Kasey Michaud introduced a bill encouraging students to donate food to local pantries by offering reductions in parking fees as an incentive.
10 years later — student journalists discuss retracted “Rolling Stone” article
By Merrill Hart | 10 hours agoThe graphic narrative ignited protests both on Grounds and at a national level.
U.Va. launches National Security Data and Policy Institute
By Sophie Long | 10 hours agoThe institute will develop AI-driven tools to process large data sets and aid analysts in identifying advancements and potential national security threats.
