The All State

» By VALENCIA JOHNSON – vjohnson@my.apsu.edu

Director of Public Safety Lantz Biles was asked to be the guest speaker at the SGA meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 21, to discuss campus safety.

Biles said there are 25 officers on staff. Fourteen are sworn-in police officers of the State of Tennessee and three are administrators, like Biles. The other 11 officers handle calls of service such as escorting students. There are always at least two officers on campus per shift.

Biles does not see any plans for additional officers due to budget constraints.

Biles also said he does not publish the patrol patterns for the campus security because there is no set route at a specific time. Biles then briefly mentioned the Crime Prevent Program that is in place, with which some of the SGA staff has been involved in.

According to Biles, there are currently about 200 ACTV cameras on campus for security purposes.

Parking is also handled by Biles’ department. There is an adequate number of parking spaces, Biles said, but they may not be convenient for some students.

Seven new senators were sworn-in at the meeting. During this week’s SGA meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 28, the new senators will be photographed and the pictures will be uploaded to the website. There is currently an open seat for the College of Education senate position.

Greg Singleton, associate vice president and dean of students, congratulated the new senators on their positions and on such a wonderful turn-out for votes, stating this past election had the second highest vote count for the fall semester.

Chris Drew, graduate student senator, submitted legislation for ”comment box” to be considered so the student body can submit their ideas. Drew’s proposal will be discussed further at this week’s SGA meeting.

During last week’s meeting, a sign-up sheet was passed around for those in SGA who are interested in the Mudbowl tournament. Those who are in SGA working the event will be compensated with a free Mudbowl T-shirt.

Singleton said 64 teams signed up to participate in the Mudbowl.

Singleton also said that he wants SGA to address making possible changes to the Student Code of Conduct. It has been 18 months since the last revision.

GHOST was mentioned at the meeting as an upcoming event planned for Sunday, Oct. 30.

Later in the semester, SGA will be attending and representing APSU during a conference held in St. Louis. TAS

» By PATRICK ARMSTRONG – parmstrong@my.apsu.edu

If you voted in the Student Government Association Fall election, then you helped set records. The 930 votes were the second-highest number cast in any SGA election and the highest voter turnout in a Fall election according to Kathryn White, chief justice.

SGA also set a record for number of freshmen to run with 28. The newly elected SGA freshmen senators are Daniel Bunger, Zac Gillman, Trey Norman, Mike Rainier and Justin Tahmassebi. The newly elected graduate senators are Joseph Chatman III and Chris Drew, former two-term SGA president.

Gillman, business major, said he was not involved in student government at Rossview High School, but was in other aspects. “I thought this would be a great way to get involved, meet new people and make new connections throughout the community,” Gillman said.

Some of Gillman’s goals are to set up a website where students can submit legislation ideas, reroute the Peay Pickup or see how transportation can be arranged to transport students from the Grove Apartments and University Landings and reaching out to diverse groups. “I want to reach out to every group of diverse people on campus and get to know them and what is holding them back from being all they can be,” Gilman said.

Rainer, business major and Rossview graduate, said he will voice other students’ opinions and ideas, and play an active role at APSU.

Rainier’s goals focus on policy changes and security concerns.

He believes the Foy Fitness and Recreation Center should be able to look up student’s names if they have left their ID card.

Another change he would like to see would be to allow students to sit inside the café without paying for a meal. “By moving the checkout register towards the food … it would also increase the social environment in the cafeteria,” Rainer said.

Regarding security, Rainier believes it needs to be enhanced when entering buildings and dorms.

Drew, the new corporate communications graduate student senator, was first elected as a freshman senator in Fall 2006 and has held the executive positions of secretary and president. “I hope I can assist new SGA members with how to properly write legislation and see that it gets implemented,” Drew said.

Drew has two goals: bring up weekly concerns he hears from students and partner with the College of Graduate Studies and Graduate Student Network.

“I want … to promote and improve the Graduate Student experience for current graduate and undergraduate students,” Drew said. TAS

By PATRICK ARMSTRONG | Editor in Chief

“Order! Your time is over to speak!” said Luke Collier, Student Government Association vice president, while banging the gavel as more than 20 student smokers loudly left the Wednesday, April 13, SGA meeting.

The students were there to speak about the proposed smoking policy changes. The students felt they were not informed about the smoking policy subcommittee that created the revision.

“If you’ve had a subcommittee, at what time were any of the smokers polled? At what time were we told that there was a meeting that we could come and voice our opinions?” said one of the students. “Many of us are handicapped. To put us all the way out on the other side is not going to be possible. These are issues that you did not take into effect and nor have any of us been polled.”

Collier said the smoking policy subcommittee has been featured in The All State along with what the possible outcomes could be and placed in the meeting minutes online.

One of the smokers then said, “In none of those [Gov Says] emails was it said that there is going to be a meeting concerning a change in [the smoking] policy. You might want to be there.”

In the Wednesday, Feb. 23 and Wednesday, March 16, meeting minutes, a brief summary of the smoking policy changes were mentioned but the complete policy was not posted on the SGA website.

SGA President Kenny Kennedy said the first 10 minutes of an SGA meeting are reserved for anyone to come and voice their opinions and that the meetings are open.

“To be quite honest … the students have already spoken,” Kennedy said.

Another smoker said with injured veterans here, they cannot walk clear across campus and then make it to classes with 10 minutes in between. “It’s not fair to make us go all the way over there when [non smokers] can just walk to your classes.”

Collier said if this had been taken to poll, then this would probably be a smoke free campus because there are a lot more non-smokers than smokers.

“We get a lot more complaints from non-smokers than we do smokers,” Collier said. “We did keep you guys in mind. We did have feelings that your voices should be heard by giving you guys the outside of campus opposed to completely banning it or making you smoke in your car.”

Multiple smokers then said their time at the meeting was useless and they have no voice despite the fact SGA voted and passed this. The smokers then left the meeting with multiple people continuing to voice their opinions on the issue.

The University Policy Committee will vote on the smoking policy changes Tuesday, May, 10, and APSU President Tim Hall will then decide whether to implement this policy or not.

Kennedy thinks these changes will make it easier to enforce by campus police because the smoking area will be reduced. He said Lantz Biles, director of Public Safety, claims their job is not to enforce the Student Code of Conduct.

Kennedy said after the SGA executive committee met with Mitch Robinson, vice president of Business and Finance, and Biles, campus police is going in a secondary route to produce new signs for a smoking policy campaign.

“The faculty are OK with it and then all the vice presidents have already approved of it. So you can basically say the administration has approved,” Kennedy said.

“[President Hall is] not really the type of person to go against a body of people who have done a lot of research on this kind of stuff,” Kennedy said. TAS

President

Trenton Gaasch total votes 490 (winner)

Kelvin Rutledge total votes 332

Vice President

Catherine “Cady” Denton total votes 709 (winner)

Executive Secretary

Jesse Brewer total votes 473 (winner)

Stephen “Drew” Smith total votes 276

Sophomore Senator

Kelsie Penick total votes 570 (winner)

Junior Senator

Roger “RJ” M. Taylor Jr. total votes 590 (winner)

Senior Senator

William Hoekstra total votes 41 (winner and write-in)

College of Arts and Letters

Jonathan Jeans total votes 450 (winner)

Thomas Paul Smith total votes 405 (winner)

Jessica Weaver total votes 36 (winner and write-in)

College of Behavioral and Health Sciences

James Cameron Bentley total votes 426 (winner)

Carlos Moreno total votes 418 (winner)

Sarah Simpson total votes 15 (winner and write-in)

College of Business

Jane Stevens total votes 60 (winner and write-in)

Jason Gerome Taylor total votes 64 (winner and write-in)

Ashley E. White total votes 529 (winner)

College of Education

Courtney Berg total votes 6 (winner and write-in)

LlieAnna Traughber total votes 61 (winner and write-in)

Katherine Worsham total votes 22 (winner and write-in)

College of Science and Mathematics

Kayla Ellis total votes 364 (winner)

Hannah Farrar total votes 430 (winner)

Krystle Irizarry total votes 353 (winner)

By HANNAH ARIC | Staff Writer
The Student Government Association has proposed and passed their first two legislations of the semester. Senator Joseph Marler and Senator RJ Taylor proposed both legislations.

The first resolution stated the SGA president must take action regarding Senate Acts and Resolutions. Before the resolution, the SGA president had the power to hold off any act or resolution, which means he did not have to act on any legislation.

“The proposed bill just sits and nothing is ever done about it,” Marler said. “[This legislation] is so the president can do something within 10 days. It could help with the senators to follow up on bills better,” he said.

The resolution states the president “must sign or veto Senate Acts and Senate Resolutions and return them by the next meeting. Any presidential veto must be over ruled by a two-thirds vote of the Senate.”

The resolution unanimously passed.

The second resolution requires Senators to meet with their college at least once each semester. The purpose of the SGA, as stated in Article II of the SGA Constitution, is to “connect students to other students, faculty, staff and administration in order to improve the quality of student life and strengthen the APSU community.”

The resolution directly states under Article II Section I, “[Senators] who represent specific colleges, shall be responsible for meeting with the dean of that representative college at least once each semester of their term of office.”

“This doesn’t directly affect APSU, but it will hopefully bring a better relationship between SGA and the Deans of other colleges. This legislation will hopefully promote a more active relationship between faculty and the SGA,” Marler said.

The second resolution passed unanimously. TAS