Editor’s Note: This post will be updated throughout the night. Check The Post tomorrow for the full article. Stay tuned for notes from the senate’s deliberation on whether or not to add a vote of confidence in the Board of Trustees to the ballot later this quarter.
* Jessica Beardsley, a member of Students for a Democratic Society, was the only student to address the senate tonight. She urged the senate to add the vote of confidence in the Board of Trustees to the ballot.
* OU sent the names of five students to Gov. Ted Strickland, who will appoint a student trustee this quarter to replace Tracy Kelly, one of two current student trustees. Several members of Student Senate are on the list.
* Senate passed a resolution to study what Ohio University students know about the Board of Trustees that serves as the university’s highest governing body. Robert Leary, the senate treasurer, sponsored the resolution.
* Senate rejected a proposal to place a vote of confidence in the Board of Trustees to the ballot this spring, when students elect next year’s senators. Senator Emily Shuki sponsored the resolution. See debate notes below.
– Four senators spoke in favor of the resolution
– Four senators offered friendly amendments to correct spelling and grammar mistakes
– Vice President Sally Neidhard questioned why the last question on the resolution was yes/no instead of a 1-5 scale
– Former student Trustee Lydia Gerthoffer: “Do you feel the opinions of students on non-voting members are irrelevant?”
– Senators debated whether a 1-5 scale offers qualitative or quantitative feedback
– Student Trustee Chauncey Jackson: “What information was used to develop these questions?” Jackson is the senate’s SAC commissioner.
– Shuki, the resolution’s primary sponsor, said the sponsors of the resolution asked students what they wanted to vote on. Another sponsor added that some of the information on the board came from the board’s Web site, http://www.ohio.edu/trustees/
– Jackson responded: “Where on the web site does it say that the board is responsible for” making themselves accessible to the student body, responding to student opinion and input and seeking out student opinion?
– Jackson and Shuki have a testy exchange over the wording of the questions and their meaning
– A senator asks whether putting that question on the ballot will imply that the senate doesn’t have confidence in the Board of Trustees
– Neidhard: “The people who were in charge of that last ballot initiative about President (Roderick) McDavis have looked back on it with genuine frustration about its outcome.” She asks what will be different this time.
– President Mike Adeyanju asks who would conduct unbiased information sessions before the ballot. He said he doubts anyone in the room isn’t biased.
– He followed up: “Are we going to deal with this issue every week for the next ten weeks?” Adeyanju said students elected the senate to govern for them and the senate has decided it is not in the interest of the student body to add this to the ballot.
– We are not trustees, we’re representatives, Shuki said.
– Jackson asks the sponsors of the resolution to name the President of the Board of Trustees. Neither sponsor he asked could name Daniel DeLawder, president of the board. Jackson called the sponsors “uninformed.”
– Students have said they want this on the ballot, said Michaela Hahn-Lawson, commissioner for Off-Campus Life.
– Senate now moving into voting on resolution.
– Voice vote inconclusive. Hand vote called.
– By a show of hands, the resolution is rejected for failing to garner a 2/3 vote.
-Dave Hendricks
