The discussion of potentially-required Friday classes in the Academic Senate brought student concerns to the Associated Students, Inc Senate meeting on Wednesday.
Music major Kyle Winterboer addressed the senate during public comments and said that the music department would be negatively affected if the policy requiring Monday and Wednesday classes to also be held on Fridays were to be enforced.
Winterboer said that the music department uses their facilities on Fridays for different events and rehearsals and requiring classes to be held on those days would impede on those.
“If we were to be required to have Friday classes, that would really mess with the orchestra and the choir rehearsals that we have going on as well,” Winterboer said.
Last week, Dhushy Sathianathan, Interim Vice President of Academic Planning, brought his proposal to the ASI Senate to change about 100 sections of Monday and Wednesday classes into Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes. The proposal had already been brought to the Academic Senate and is awaiting discussion.
Sathianathan said there is a policy in place that has been ignored for several years that states that classes scheduled for Monday and Wednesday in the hours of 8-11 a.m must also be scheduled for Fridays.
Jeff Jarvis, ASI Senate Faculty Representative, said that the issue will be referred to the Curriculum Education and Policy Council and they will discuss it before it comes back to the Academic Senate, where it will write its own resolution.
“We’re going to send it back to the committee so they can come up with the best solution,” President Jose Salazar said in his report. “So nothing’s in the works yet.”
Sen. Marcus Harwell mentioned that he and Sen. Kelsey Kimmes received over 50 emails from students in the last day alone opposing the change in class schedule.
The Academic Senate is meeting Thursday from 2-4 p.m. in the Towner Auditorium in Psychology 150 to discuss the issue more.
ASI Vice President Miriam Hernandez reported good student participation in Monday’s town hall meeting, where she and other ASI executives and senators were available outside of the Student Health and Recreation Center to field questions and concerns from students.
Hernandez also mentioned that students are also concerned over tuition costs because Governor Brown’s tuition freeze is about to expire at the end of this year.
“The future of our tuition is really at risk at this point because at the end of the day, it’s the CSU Board of Trustees that decides if they want to increase our tuition,” Hernandez said. “I really want to put this back on the senate and as you all do your research, what is it that our senate can do? Do we we take a stance on no more tuition hikes? … We definitely need to protect our education.”
The next ASI town hall meeting will be Nov. 5 from 4-6 p.m. at The Pointe in the Walter Pyramid.
Also during Wednesday’s senate meeting, Senator David Kling mentioned in his report that he wants to look into an electronic counting system that could tell students how many parking spots are available when they try to park on campus to make it easier to park.
Hernandez shared that the Parking and Transportation Advisory Committee has hired a consultant to look at different avenues in easing the parking situation on campus. She explained that the committee is discussing raising the price of parking permits because students and ASI senators are asking for improvements, like having better signage in the structures.
“We want to improve all these things and they don’t have the budget enough to do that,” Hernandez said. “But I’m glad that [Sen. Kling] brought that up because now [Sen. Marvin Flores] and I can move that idea forward and say, ‘look students are asking for this’ so maybe they can prioritize it without having to increase the parking fee.”