Last night, the University Park Undergraduate Association passed two resolutions and two policies. Most notably, after the major victory last Tuesday of getting a non-voting student representative on the State College Borough Council, the Assembly voted on legislation determining how that representative would be chosen.

The resolution that was passed (by a 32-0-5 vote) stipulates that the member elected to the position must be a member of the UPUA Assembly or the Association’s President or Vice President, as these are all positions elected by popular student vote. Governmental Affairs Chair T.J. Bard said this was the way to most accurately reflect the student body, as opposed to an outsider with no official backing from the student body.

After discussing the demanding time commitment and fear of UPUA responsibilities interfering, the Assembly actually amended the resolution to keep the mandate that the Representative, as a UPUA member, must sit on a committee.

Let me just say this: this is one of the most important student positions we now have at Penn State, considering how much we are a part of the State College community and how much we party in it and therefore the Borough may have issues with us. We really need someone in that seat, and I’m not against someone foregoing their other UPUA positions to serve that need, or even having someone specially positioned just for the job. We shouldn’t let bylaws and technicalities overshadow the importance of this role. We all know what’s at stake here.

Next week the Assembly will actually elect the Borough Council representative for the interim, and will hold another election for next semester. After that, the representative will serve a term of one year.

Other happenings:

• Byron Siegall was unanimously confirmed as the new Health and Human Development Representative.
• The Assembly voted 29-0-9 to co-sponsor an upcoming NAACP dinner.
• They passed a policy clarifying the procedures and definitions of event sponsorship.
• They passed a resolution to assemble a committee to look into the feasibility of posting course syllabi online in a centralized location, similar to the University Bulletins.
• Vice President for Student Affairs gave a special presentation. Check back tomorrow for more on that part of the meeting.