Racial prejudice within the criminal justice system was brought up during the Iowa State Student Government meeting public forum Wednesday, when the Color of Love President Endi Montalvo-Martínez told the Senate to take action against policing on campus.
“It’s concerning that a community can be built with people who carry a gun at their waist. That community can be built with people who body-slammed students, leading to bodily injury, or that community can be built with people who disregard students who experience sexual violence on this campus,” Montalvo-Martínez said.
Montalvo-Martínez recommended restorative justice as an alternative that could be implemented at Iowa State to make students feel more safe on campus.
Workday
During the Senate meeting, Senior Advisor to the Senior Vice President and Provost Steve Mickelson introduced the senators to the rollout and new features of Workday, the software program replacing AccessPlus for student services.
“AccessPlus has been around for almost 27 years, so they will agree it’s time that we move into a modern system and that’s why we’re looking to Workday,” Mickelson said.
In the fall of 2024, Workday will replace AccessPlus as the software that students and faculty will use for services such as registering for classes, viewing degree progress, financial aid, scholarships and on-campus jobs.
On March 4, all students will be able to access Workday to start the onboarding process and registration for fall 2024 classes will be on the new program.
In addition to these changes, class numbers will also be altered. Due to an increase in classes offered at the university, numbers for courses are running out. The switch will be simple with each class number adding a fourth digit, for example, if the class is 161 it becomes 1610.
“[Workday is] really the biggest shift in using any kind of system at Iowa State in the history of Iowa State,” Mickelson said.
Orders of business
Several vacancies were filled during the Senate meeting Wednesday.
A new chief justice will be appointed by the end of the week after the prior justice resigned.
Two Senate appointees were unanimously approved during the meeting. David Minchew, a sophomore in engineering, was appointed as the new College of Engineering senator and Chase Anderson, a sophomore in software engineering, was appointed as the new director of marketing.
Both newly elected senators said that many students are unaware that the student government exists and want to work toward fixing that problem.
“I’m a sophomore, I’m gonna be going into my junior year and this is the first time I found out that student government was a tangible thing I could get involved with,” Anderson said, “This hasn’t been something that’s really been pushed to me as an opportunity for you to get into if you’re not in political science.”
Both candidates said they want to find ways to increase awareness of Student Government and get more people involved.
The following were approved unanimously:
- Myer Loeb will serve as an at-large member of the sustainability committee
- Lauren Vierregger will serve on the sustainability committee
- Tadiwa Mbuwayesango will serve on the finance committee
- The gymnastics club received funding for their national competition
