Issue date: 4/5/07 Section: Campus News

Before finalizing its change in leadership Monday, Student Senate debated and voted down a resolution to support professionalism during Senate meetings.

The resolution, authored by Senators Eric Highlander, Bobby Hamill and Meghan Charlier, was in response to complaints some senators had about a lack of professionalism in meetings, the authors said.

"(During Senate meetings) at times people are doing homework or playing on their computer and that is not appropriate," Highlander said. "If I was going to do homework, I wouldn't attend the meeting. We need to listen to everybody."

According to the resolution, homework, laptops, or other activities not pertaining to Senate draw attention away from the matters at hand, and in order to best represent the students, members present at Senate meetings must give their undivided attention to the meeting agenda and related discussion.

Senator Jacob Boer said he did not see the point of the resolution.

"Of course we want more professionalism (in our meetings), but I don't see why we need to say 'Try harder,' " Boer said. "If there is a problem, go talk to the person and use direct communication. If that doesn't work, then we can all talk. We can still have fun while serving the students."

Senator Dylan Jambrek said there has been a lot of a non-Senate related discussion occurring at Senate meetings.

"We need to reiterate professionalism," he said.

Senator Aaron Olson said the resolution did not mandate any action. He also said professionalism is like leadership.

"You can't mandate (professionalism)," he said. "If you show up, you read the bills, people will take you seriously and this will spread like a positive disease."

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