During Monday night’s CUSG Senate meeting, members of student government discussed upcoming events and projects. These included various updates on academics, health services, innovation and technology and COVID-19 developments in the community.
The meeting began, as usual, with updates from each committee chair. With upcoming class registration for the spring semester approaching on Nov. 1, Senator Newell of Academic Affairs announced that the Plan Ahead feature in iROAR will become available to students starting Oct. 6. This allows students to create their class schedules ahead of time before registration begins.
Senator Huggins announced that Clemson Home and Dining will be announcing a new meal plan for students called the Block 150, “which will save students money by giving them 200 Paw Points and less dining hall meal swipes,” according to Huggins.
The new meal plan will replace the Block 175 meal plan and give students more access to restaurant options on-campus.
While leading the recap on Health and Human Services during the announcement of Live Well Week, which is currently Oct. 4-8, Senator Kibler discussed the upcoming events including the Flu Vaccine Clinic and Sexual Health Awareness Seminar on Oct. 6, and a Healthy Cooking Demo on Oct. 7. She also summarized the final vaccination percentages among students after the Vaccination Card Upload incentive deadline passed on Sept. 30.
“As of right now, Clemson students are 61.4% vaccinated, which is actually a higher percentage than the staff rate [59.7%],” commented Kibler. Staff and faculty are calculated differently, and 87.2% of faculty are vaccinated.
When transitioning to Innovation and Technology, Senator Mazzeo discussed how she had the opportunity to meet with Dean Cox, where it was released that Cooper Library is only up to 75% of the traffic that it had prior to the start of quarantining during COVID-19.
“I met with Dean Cox this Wednesday [Sept. 29] , where he predicted that the library will eventually be at full capacity hopefully by finals week,” said Mazzeo. “He noted that there were several complaints from Clemson students and faculty about the library not being open 24/7 … Dean Cox proposed the idea of finding another area on campus available to students and faculty on a 24-hour basis, although it is possible for the library to open back up during spring semester.”
Vice President Lowder also outlined her call with the CEO and Co-Founder of Listeners On Call, which led to the motion of getting the Listener On Call program implemented on campus in the near future. Listeners On Call is a program that promotes mental health awareness and human connection outlets on college campuses. Their main emphasis and belief is that, “the largest impact is human to human connection.”
“Students in psychology training can become paid listeners and allow Clemson students to talk about their mental health at scheduled times throughout the day,” said Lowder. “While the founder said that this program is implemented with psychology students at first, students in other majors could eventually become paid listeners and earn gift cards or Paw Points as a part of the points-based rewards system for answering daily mental health check-up questionnaires.”
Switching topics to the confirmed mask mandate extension for the third time during the 2021-22 academic year, President Rogers then elaborated on the community and City of Clemon’s higher COVID-19 positivity rate in comparison to the university’s positivity rate.
“The university says that we have been doing well and actually have a lower positivity rate than the community does,” said Rogers. “They believe we deserve more credit in comparison with the outside community having higher rates.”
Senators also mentioned that an autonomous shuttle program will be coming to campus, which is supported by a grant from the Department of Education, along with the initial approval of the Bryan Mall area renovation.
Clemson University Student Government Senate meets on Monday nights at 7 p.m. in the Student Senate Chambers.
