ASWSU’s latest census caused debate over which seat would be cut at last night’s meeting. The census is conducted every four years, though with COVID-19 impacting the 2020 census, this was the first census since 2016.
Before the vote, the Carson College of Business had two seats and Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture had one seat. Now, that number is swapped – Carson has one seat and Voiland has two.
The senate engaged in a lengthy debate as to who gets the seat with senators arguing for both sides. The senators had to factor in what was best for the school and which college was likely to run for a seat.
A majority vote at the end of the debate resulted in Voiland taking the seat.
One reoccurring issue was the amount of advertising for ASWSU seats within the colleges.
“I think a lot of students in the Voiland College are interested in a leadership role, they are interested in representing the students [but] it’s just not advertised enough…in addition to that, I’m hearing a lot of feedback from my peers that there’s issues going on within the STEM degrees, basically how the curriculum is arranged, [so] I think that having more representation in ASWSU would help to resolve [this],” Senator Guneet Kaur said.
Senator Sage Steelman decided to factor in which college is more isolated into his decision.
“One thing to consider would be how Voiland and Carson intersect with other colleges…I’m not sure how much Voiland intersects with the other colleges, except from maybe Arts and Sciences. If you’re just trying to best represent interests of the schools then I think that the college that’s more isolated should have more representation,” he said.
Senator Ainsley Carpenter moved away from the hypothetical arguments and looked at which colleges had stuck to resolutions instead.
“I do want to look at the projects done from each college because we are the senators that are representing our college, to make changes for our college. Looking at it, I favor business [a little bit more] just because [in] past senates there’s been a lot of good resolutions [and] good projects, that’ve been put through and I haven’t heard a ton from Voiland College,” she said. “I think if we look at projects done in the past, Carson College of Business definitely has more resolutions that they’ve kept track of and they can make more changes in their college.”
Carpenter said she was not diminishing Voiland’s work during her opinion.
“[I’m] not saying that Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture doesn’t have anything to work on, but I just haven’t seen that push from a lot of senators in the past,” she said.
How does the census work?
The census aims to check that the number of seats given to each academic college at WSU are accurate in relation to the amount of people getting degrees from each college. The more people graduating with degrees from one academic college means the more seats that college gains in the ASWSU, with a limit of ten seats total.
This year’s census resulted in 11 seats as both Carson and Voiland had similar degree rates which granted them two seats each. To abide by ASWSU’s constitution, one of these seats would need to be cut. All other academic colleges had one seat, bar the College of Arts and Sciences which had three seats.
When a tie occurs, such as the one between Carson and Voiland, the senate must vote on who gets a seat cut.
