SA: Mellen opposes new calendar policy

Members of SA debated a new policy regarding events calendars for the spring semester at the General Assembly meeting on Thursday, Nov. 15.

As it stands now, student groups are required to hand in a calendar of events to the vice president of SA at the beginning of each month. A new policy is set to go into effect next semester in which the VP is required to compile all the events into one calendar for distribution to campus life, residence life, etc.

When the new policy came up, SA vice president Jason Mellen motioned to get rid of the policy that he calls "autocratic paperwork that has no purpose." Mellen also proposed that the Association get rid of the requirement of student groups to submit calendars altogether.

"There may be a misconception that I have a problem with this because it is additional work for me; this is not the issue," Mellen said in an interview. "The issue is that our groups don't see the purpose of it. If it does not help our groups, then there is no point in doing it."

The policy was passed by the assembly despite Mellen's attempts to do away with it.

"There are 130 groups, we need some way of seeing what is going on with them," said Kaylene Dunning, speaker of the assembly. "[The calendar] is a great way for the groups to advertise their events."

-Reporting done by Kevin Freese, assistant campus life editor and Peter Viglietta, news editor