The 14th Assembly of the University Park Undergraduate Association convened in the HUB on Wednesday evening for its fourth meeting of the semester.

The meeting began with a special presentation from Lisa Milne from Alumni Career Services.

Milne helped organize and lead the Philadelphia Job Shadow Program, which partnered UPUA with Alumni Career Services. The program took students on a trip to Philadelphia this past fall to visit Pennoni Headquarters and also shadow and meet with alumni in the area.

Milne expressed hopes for the Penn State Alumni Career Services to continue this program and expand it, hopefully planning another trip for the fall and also looking into sponsoring a trip to D.C. in the future.

Legislation

For the first order of business for the night, the assembly voted to create a Community Group Representative Seat for the International Student Council. The recommendation passed with a vote of 32-0-2, and would go into effect immediately at the start of the 15th Assembly. This passed in hopes to better represent the international student population.

Bill 22-14, The 2020 Elections Commission Budget, passed unanimously. This bill would increase the allocated funds for election budgeting which increased due to the amended elections code.

The third piece of legislation on the list was resolution 36-14, “Support of Proposal For UHS Free Sexually Transmitted Testing Funded Through Your Student Initiated Fee” and passed with a voice vote.

The assembly broke out into some debate over the use of the word “free” in the title and throughout the resolution. This was due to the fact that the fees for the testing would be technically “free” at time of testing, but covered through each student’s initiation fee. The original title of Resolution 36-14 read “Support of UHS Free STI Testing Proposal.”

Prior to the passing of this resolution, students were charged $42 for testing on chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. In addition, if students did not pay this cost out of pocket the testing would show up under any insurance that they have linked through the university’s services.

With the passing of this resolution, the testing would not show up on any insurance bill and would be anonymous.

Resolution #37-14, Establishment of a Student Conduct Commission, was the fourth piece of legislation for the night, and passed unanimously.

This resolution proposed that UPUA should create a student conduct commission that would meet with officers from the Student Conduct Office to advocate and amend the Code of Conduct and Student Organization Conduct Procedures.

During the conduct process for students, UPUA hopes that this commission would help to facilitate and clarify confusing parts of the process and better help guide students.

The assembly adjourned at 9:44 p.m. Double hooray for an early night two weeks in a row!