While graduate students managed to gain last-minute access to Wednesday's student ticket lottery for the Notre Dame-USC football game, Graduate Student Union leaders said at their Thursday meeting that more must be done.
Quality of Life committee chair Paul Schramm said he will meet with the president of the Student Bar Association, a representative from the Mendoza School of Business and Vice President for Student Affairs Father Mark Poorman to "make sure this problem will be taken care of" in the future.
GSU president Mike Lundin also said University officials have recently discussed placing student tickets for away football games in the hands of the Notre Dame ticket office next year.
In the past, that responsibility has been given to the Student Union Board, a undergraduate student organization in charge of campus programming. If the ticket office takes control, it would allow tickets to be distributed to all Notre Dame students, not just undergraduates, Lundin said.
"Everybody will have access to tickets next year," Lundin said. "There just won't be one entity in charge that works only for the best interest of its body."
He added that graduate students would most likely be required to purchase season home football tickets in order to be included in away game lotteries.
In other GSU news:
uThe University has resolved a legal issue and can move forward in providing graduate students with emergency health care services, GSU vice president Amber Handy said.
In providing this emergency assistance, the University had been illegally acting as an insurance provider in directly paying medical bills. To solve this problem, students will directly receive funds from the University and then pay their bills.
"Grad students will have to float the bill for a little while," she said, but the University can continue to render this service now that legal issues have been resolved.
uHealth Care committee chair John Young reported on a meeting with Director of Health Services Ann Kleva. During that meeting Young suggested including students on the University's Health Services committee. Kleva supported the idea of including student representatives, Young said, but no decision was reached.
"We can still talk about the issues and make our voices heard even if we're not on the committee," Young said. "The meeting was encouraging."
uAcademic Affairs committee chair Steven Molveric said the library has been working to enforce its lending policies and has agreed to a limit of 500 books per student.
The limit is necessary, Molveric explained, because "there was a graduate student who had 1,800 theology books checked out and didn't listen to the recall policy." The library did enforce its recall policy, but only after theology students circulated a petition to reclaim the recalled materials.
uThe threat of barring faculty from library use has greatly decreased the number of policy violators this fall, according to a statement prepared by Library committee chair Brian Pitts.
uOne member proposed allowing a presentation from undergraduate student senators promoting Fair Trade coffee at the next GSU meeting. After much debate, however, the issue was tabled so that council members can gather feedback from their constituents.
