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ASUA accomplished goals In '99, Graff says

The 1999-2000 ASUA Senate set a precedent this year by working closely with the Faculty Senate and really reaching out to the student body, said ASUA President Ben Graff.

Graff, who oversaw the 1999-2000 Senate as executive vice president, said this year the Associated Student Senate was directly involved with the Faculty Senate on the changes to the UA academic code of integrity.

Sens. Ryan Roa and Shane Brogan worked directly with Steve Smith, chairman of the UA Student Affairs Policy Committee, on changes to the code, Graff said.

The new changes to the code allow a student to now resubmit an item of academic work as long as the student includes proper citation or permission from the professor.

Graff added that the fact that other governing bodies are approaching ASUA for student opinion is encouraging.

"The administration and faculty could literally make decisions and run over ASUA, but the Faculty Senate waited and worked with the ASUA Senate," Graff said. "I know in the future the Faculty Senate will come to ASUA before making decisions."

Graff said another highlight of the year was when Veda Hunn, assistant dean of students, approached the Senate to discuss new code of conduct provisions on sexual misconduct, gambling and expulsion.

Hunn had said at an April Senate meeting that it was important to get student input on changes to the code.

Former ASUA President Cisco Aguilar agreed that the Senate was involved in important discussions.

"I think they did a great job," Aguilar said. "They addressed some important issues."

One of those issues was the new proposed changes to the UA smoking policy, which the Senate unanimously supported.

The proposed changes would prohibit smoking within 25 feet of any university buildings.

Graff added that along with working with other UA governing bodies, the Senate also reached out to the students.

"I think this group took an amazing initiative to reach out to students," Graff said. "That's definitely new to ASUA Senate."

Sens. Ray Quintero and Julie Burkhart were in charge of surveying the student body on a possible restructuring of the Senate.

"We finally started surveying students to get their opinions on issues," Quintero said.

Some of the options include having the Senate re-structured to have a representative from each college, leaving the Senate as it is and appointing campus representative to lobby the Senate, or dividing the campus into districts with regional representation.

Quintero said the surveying is still going on and he hopes the new Senate will continue with it.

Overall Quintero said the Senate was successful.

"I think as a Senate in general we were productive," Quintero said. "In general, I think that we worked closely with the student body and all other areas of ASUA."

Audrey DeAnda can be reached at Audrey.DeAnda@wildcat.arizona.edu.