The Associated Students Inc. initiated discussions on Senate resolution #2024-10 during their Senate meeting Wednesday.
With the intention of setting goals for the upcoming semester next year, the resolution currently presents six goals, with the last two still needing to be finalized and submitted.
- Aid in the success of students from all backgrounds
- Prioritize affordability of higher education
- Increase accessibility of campus buildings, resources, etc.
- Increase outreach to students, organizations, faculty, staff, etc.
- Accountability across campus departments.
- Student safety on campus.
The focus of all goals is to ensure a friendly and safe environment of Cal State Long Beach to all students. However, during the meeting, some concerns were noted.
One of the main concerns is that freshmen students should be prioritized for a good start to the new semester. The senate advocated for a stronger first-year program, including academic resources for new students.
The senate also advocated prioritizing the resource center for minority students including African Americans, Latinx and Pacific Islander students.
With a suggestion from Senator Saniya Debose, a possible program that would establish a relationship connection between high school and college students would facilitate easier navigation of CSULB resources to new students.
Senator Debose also enforced that goal four needs to promote access and inclusion of ASI with students.
“[We’re] promoting a safe and inclusive environment for students to speak with us,” Debose said.
Another additional suggestion to the goals was to goal three. Senator Claire Pearson said that accessibility to students who are temporarily disabled should be prioritized to get to classes on time and even spoke about her personal experience.
Another point was made by Faculty representative Jeff Jarvis about the success rate of CSULB.
According to Jarvis, CSULB has a success rate below 70% and he noted that the college would like to change, but also pointed out that many students here work, which could be one reason for the low percentage.
The last issue that was brought up in the meeting was goal five, accountability, and what it means to CSULB departments.
The broadness of the goal brought up issues such as the definition of accountability for ASI Senators to the college departments.
Most senators agreed that the goal is to enforce responsibility upon all college departments with students, and that if any problem occurs with the department, they should be held accountable.
“For me, accountability is really just representing people to the best of your ability,” Senator at-large Verena Mikhail said. “If you’re accountable, that means that you’re truly serving with everything you got. You’re being transparent with yourself and you’re being transparent with others.”
ASI will continue further discussions about the goals at their next meeting on Dec. 6.