The ASWSU Senate discussed a resolution supporting mental health resources and Pat Chun, WSU athletic director, spoke about the WSU athletic department at Wednesday night’s meeting.

Resolution to support mental health resources

ASWSU Senators passed a resolution that will call on state legislators in the House of Representatives in Washington to support mental health resources for university students including WSU students.

“Mental health is incredibly important for all college campuses,” Tyler Parchem, ASWSU vice president said. “It’s an epidemic, it’s happening right now, and no one really wants to talk about it especially because we’re really susceptible to a lot of stress, a lot of emotion, a lot of change in our lives.”

According to the resolution, the Washington State Department of Health will be required to hire a contractor to create statewide resources for behavioral health and suicide  prevention in colleges. These efforts will be funded through a grant program.

“Being able to have resources, being able to talk about it is something that is really important to all of us,” Parchem said.

Athletic department update

Chun spoke at the ASWSU meeting about the academic standing of WSU athletes.

The WSU student athletes earned their highest cumulative GPAs this fall semester, said Chun. Cumulatively, they earned a 3.1 GPA.

“Academically we excel, we had our best fall ever academically,” he said.

Chun also spoke about the importance of student support. “Vocal student support is needed, it impacts the teams immeasurably,” said Chun.

CrimsonCode Hackathon

The ASWSU Senate approved funding for the CrimsonCode Hackathon, an event set up by the Association for Computing Machinery.

The Hackathon is a 24 hour event where students can create projects and learn about new technologies while networking, said Kyle Little, ACM club officer.

The ASWSU Senate approved $2,396 of funding for rental of the Spark Building where the event will be held.

Confirmation

Skylar Schmidt, a current ASWSU committee member, was unanimously confirmed as the new deputy director of communication.
Schmidt said she wants students to have a connection to ASWSU and also wants to be a person that communities feel like they can come to anytime.

“It’s highly important to get feedback from students,” she said.

Todd Stephan, a freshman at WSU was confirmed as an election board member.