In an attempt to continue the resolution process for the Catt Hall issue, the Government of the Student Body senate passed a bill Wednesday night titled “The Next Step” with a vote of 23-5.

The bill is a continuation of Senate Resolution “Time for Closure,” which was passed last month.

The March bill resolved to take action on the Catt Hall issue by forming a committee to examine all sides and arrive at a fair decision.

According to a proposal distributed at the GSB meeting, “the mission of the Committee for Review of the Catt Controversy is to review the controversy over the name of Catt Hall and to make recommendations of specific action items that will help bring about closure of the issue.”

The proposal and bills on this issue were drawn up primarily by Matt Ostanik, design.

In the proposal, closure is defined as “establishing open communication, reviewing and considering all relevant information, and taking all reasonable steps to generate a proposal that shows evidence of active and fair consideration of the diverse viewpoints on the issue.”

Closure, however, does not necessitate changing the name of Catt Hall.

The committee will review historical information about Carrie Chapman Catt and will seek more information about the accusations against her character, including racism, xenophobia and classism.

Committee members also will investigate the original naming process that resulted in the decision to commemorate Catt, and whether that process “adequately addressed any found historical concerns and included a true diversity of opinions from the university community.”

After these processes, the committee will prepare a proposal for closure on the issue and will present it to GSB and the Office of the President by the fourth regular senate meeting of the fall 1998 semester.

The committee will have 14 members and a chairperson, who will vote only in the occurrence of a tie.

According to the proposal, members will include five current Iowa State students, three faculty members, three representatives of the ISU administration and staff, three alumni and a student chairperson.

Committee members will be selected on the basis of their opinions on the Catt controversy, degree of vocality on the issue, gender, ethnic background, identification with a recognized minority group, association with different curricula and colleges, geographic background and life experiences.

Ostanik said the selection process will begin as soon as possible by a separate committee, which includes GSB senators Kate Kjergaard, LAS, and Jamal White, engineering.

Other members of the selection committee will include Matt McLaren, GSB vice president, and at-large students Brian Johnson and Sarah Williams.

The proposal stated the selection committee will advertise and seek out candidates to serve on the review committee.

A list of groups will be requested to provide both candidates for the review committee and a non-voting representative to attend the meetings of the selection committee.

The list includes the Office of the President, all ISU colleges and various minority and specialty groups.

At Wednesday’s GSB meeting, the listed groups sparks a debate.

“Listing those groups, we were trying to make it inclusive,” Ostanik said.

The list originally did not include the colleges, and some senators suggested the list was exclusive to certain members of the ISU community.

Steve Erickson, off campus, criticized the list and proposed an amendment to add Young Campus Republicans and Power ISU to the groups.

Ostanik and Justin Hattan, LAS, agreed that adding more groups was worth consideration.

“If people feel they would not be represented by this list, we should appease those people,” Hattan said.

Hattan suggested adding GSB, which consists of all students, to the list rather than the two groups Erickson recommended.

“It incorporates everyone,” he said.

The amendment passed, followed by another amendment that replaced GSB with the colleges.

“What better way to utilize the structure [of ISU] than to use the colleges,” said the amendment’s initiator, Mike Poray, graduate student. The amendment passed with a vote of 23-2.

Yasmine Blackburn, off campus, said allowing any student to perform these tasks would invite “mass chaos.”

“There would be nothing to stop them from submitting as many people as possible to stop this thing from happening,” she said.

But Matt Loney, off campus, said the proposal should not favor certain groups.

“I think the committee needs to look for a diverse group of students, but this doesn’t mean we need to give special encouragement to individual groups,” he said.

“Instead, we need to encourage all ISU students who have feelings about the Catt controversy to get involved.”

In other news, the GSB:

• Passed a bill to fund Richardson Court Association’s 100-inning softball game, with a vote of 28-0.

• Passed a bill to fund the Rodeo Club’s construction of a new pull building, with a vote of 29-0.