On Wednesday evening, the Student Senate convened in LaFortune Student Center to discuss relevant issues and initiatives to the Notre Dame community.
“We’re really focusing on trying to get the computer science class initiative through, [because] it would be a really positive thing,” Keough Hall senator and junior Kevin Coleman said.
Passed unanimously by the Senate, the resolution will propose an introductory computer science course to the administration, which would fulfill a core-curriculum requirement for science.
“This is something that, say, if you were a non-engineering major, it could still be helpful to know HTML or Java … I could really foresee this becoming a reality, and a really positive change,” Alumni Hall senator and sophomore Scott Moore said.
Cavanaugh Hall senator and sophomore Ashley Calvani, proposed a reform to the grab-and-go paper bags.
“It’s an annoyance to use those brown paper bags all the time, so perhaps we eliminate them and use reusable bags to carry around all the time and use in place of the brown paper bags,” Calvani said.
The initiative suggests a reusable bag given to first year students at orientation. The reusable bags would be used each time a student utilized the grab-and-go service in the dining hall.
“This could be super effective for those who use grab-and-go as their daily routine,” senior Matt Devine, student body vice president, said.
“This could be a really great thing particularly at the grassroots level, and those would want to do it would do it,” Moore said.
Student body president and senior Lauren Vidal gave an update on the new Student Nighttime Auxiliary Patrol (O’SNAP) pilot program.
“They’re adding two new dispatchers to the O’SNAP program in order to promote efficiency within the pilot program,” Vidal said.
Ridership went up significantly in November and December to nearly 1,000 riders per month, which almost triples the number of riders Safe Walk ever accommodated in a similar period.
A number of events, such as hall elections in two weeks and Hall of the Year presentations in slightly over a month, are highly anticipated by members of the Senate.
“It’s the only thing [I’ll say] but it’s the most important thing … the Fisher Regatta is officially 73 days away,” Fisher senator and junior Grant Humphreys said.
The meeting concluded with a prayer in honor of Daniel Kim, the Notre Dame sophomore who recently passed away.
“This is a true tragedy for the Notre Dame community … though [I] did not know Daniel personally, from what I have learned, he was a genuinely, genuinely kind human being who truly cared for his friends and family,” Vidal said.
