In its last meeting of the session, Student Government debated for nearly 2 hours on three pieces of legislation that were ultimately failed by the Senate after considerable debate on each item.

In total, the Senate convened for more than 4.5 hours with intent to resolve last minute legislation and agenda items. However, the meeting was also dedicated to “goodbyes” as it served as the last Senate meeting for outgoing Student Government leadership who are either graduating or were not re-elected to their position.

Of legislation passed, the Senate approved a $51 funding request to the Freshman Council, as well as $650 to the Sales Engineering Club. The Senate also approved the ASSET contract, which totals $198,000, and has been funded annually by the Student Government since 2007.

Included in the ASSET contract are local Ames agencies that are social services in the community such as Youth and Shelter Services and the Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support.

What occupied a major part of the meeting, however, was whether or not the Senate should solidify two separate committees — one on residency, the other on civic engagement.

Ultimately, the civic engagement committee that was first brought on to Student Government ad hoc last semester, was approved by the Senate. However, a residential committee was not.

If it had been approved, the committee on residency would have focused on expanding the RentSmartAmes program, as well as pushing out the residential rating system Student Government has been working on this past year.

Vice President Cody Smith advocated for the creation of the committee on residency as he felt that it was essential in addressing off-campus student housing.

“Basically, there is always going to be a problem if there are students and housing,” he said. “No one in the city of Ames is taking ownership [because] they say it is on the landlord.”

Smith added that he feels the university is not taking ownership of addressing off-campus student housing, either, because it is not on campus property. Meaning, he feels it is Student Government’s responsibility to begin bridging the divide with the various stakeholders through this committee.

“This is an issue that has been around for a long time,” Smith said. “We need the committee to implement the residential rating system.”

Other senators felt, however, that it was not the current administration’s decision to establish a committee during this transitionary period.

In addition to the committee of residency failing, so did the bill that sought to establish a cabinet position on residency that would run in coordination with the residential committee. For the same reasons, however, the legislation failed.

Other agenda items included the possibility adding senator information to the syllabus. Proposed as a resolution, the legislation encouraged that teaching faculty “incorporate their college’s senator’s information on their syllabus” as a means to better inform the student body of their representatives.

The resolution was sponsored by Sen. Kathryn Walker who in introducing the legislation said that if professors are willing to put information on the syllabus and keep it updated, they should be willing to keep check of who their college’s senators are when updating the syllabus each year — per professor discretion.

However, some senators felt that because there had been little input requested from administration or the Faculty Senate that it would best to indefinitely postpone the legislation, killing it this session.

In what was a more controversial debate by the Senate, Student Government also discussed the possible restructuring of the university affairs committee to instead be lead by a member of the cabinet versus a member of the Senate.

Some like Sen. Chelsea Eret, university affairs committee chair, were upset because they felt the change was unnecessary and felt that the university affairs committee will continue to grow in a positive direction if it retains its leadership in the Senate.

Sen. Wyatt Scheu and Sen. Kathryn Paszkiewicz who sponsored the legislation, however, felt that transferring the leadership to the senior director for student services — a cabinet position — would elevate and raise the potential of the committee through increased collaboration between the two branches.

Ultimately, after a roughly 30-minute debate, the Senate failed the resolution with a recommendation to revisit the issue in the upcoming session.

The Senate also passed a resolution dubbed “Taking Back the Tap” which supports Student Government working with Iowa State departments to “discontinue the sale of soft plastic water bottles” in campus dining and retail locations.

Convening at 11:30 p.m., Student Government also named Sen. Kathryn Neilson Senator of the Year, with Sen. Kelsey Culbertson also in close consideration for the award. The two senators had voted for each other.