The positions of Senate president, vice president and financial director will be up for grabs during the General Assembly meeting on Thursday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. in the Student Activity Center’s Legislative Assembly (SAC 2.302).

Nominations occurred during the Feb. 9 General Assembly meeting and since then, nominees have been meeting with college council leaders and speaking at council meetings. During the General Assembly meeting on Jan. 26, Senate passed the first election code in organization history and the code will govern this year’s elections.

Each council is given one vote with 60 percent of the vote coming from the individual council’s president, Senate representative and financial director, and the remaining 40 percent of the vote coming from the rest of the college council members. The winners of the election will be announced during the meeting on Feb. 23.

Below is the list of nominees for Senate’s three elected positions:

President
Michael Morton (Senate’s Communications Director)
Emily Van Duyn (Senate’s Vice President)

Vice President
Andrew Clark (Co-chair of Senate’s Academic Integrity Committee)
Hannah Tucker (Co-chair of Senate’s Outreach and Development Committee)

Financial Director
Kendra Loftice (Senate’s Administrative Director)
Bala Varadhan (Co-chair of Senate’s Outreach and Development Committee)

Come watch improv groups across campus compete in challenges focused around integrity on campus!

This competition challenges teams of Resident Assistants (RA’s) to consider ethical dimensions of their decision making while working with students in the residential setting. This year’s case study scenario will focus on the topics of racism and Facebook.

As part of IntegrityUT Week (Feb. 20-24), the Senate of College Councils is proud to present “A Conversation with Margaret C. Berry” on Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 5 -6 p.m. the Student Activity Center Auditorium (SAC 1.402). Admission is free to everyone and seats to the event are on a first-come, first-served basis.

Named a Distinguished Alumna by the Texas Exes in 1996, Margaret C. Berry has several endowed scholarships given annually in her name and has been awarded numerous honors, including Austin’s Most Worthy Citizen in 2005. Born and raised in Dawson, Texas, Berry is a 1937 graduate from The University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in history. Upon earning her master’s from Columbia University, Berry began her career in post-secondary education at Navarro Junior College where she served as a dean and history instructor. The fourth-generation Texan then became Dean of Women at East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University – Commerce) in 1950. In 1960, Berry returned to Columbia University to earn her doctorate in higher education. Berry returned to Texas in 1961 when she moved to Austin to write her dissertation on the student life and customs at UT Austin and eventually became the university’s Associate Dean of Women in 1962. Known as UT Austin’s unofficial historian, Berry has written several books about the university’s history, traditions, leaders and its buildings, including: UT Austin: Traditions and Nostalgia; The University of Texas: A Pictorial Account of its First Century; Brick by Golden Brick: A History of University of Texas Campus Buildings; UT History 101: Highlights in the History of the University of Texas. In 1980, Berry retired, but from 1995 to 2002 she taught freshmen seminars on University of Texas history.

Among her contributions to UT Austin are: founding the first telephone counseling service on campus; teaching a UT class for student leaders titled “Self and the Campus Society” for 25 years; serving as president of the Retired Faculty/Staff Association and an active member of the Texas Exes Scholarship Committee and the UT Heritage Society; and serving on the Commission of 125, an appointed group of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, which set long-term priorities and goals for the university during its 125^th anniversary in 2008.

Now 96 years young, Berry is still active in the university community and often speaks to campus organizations and groups about UT Austin’s history. On January 11, 2012, UT Austin President Bill Powers announced the ground floor atrium of the new Student Activity Center will be named in Berry’s honor. The official renaming ceremony is scheduled for Friday, April 13.

A new piece of Senate legislation aims to give students the opportunity to see current, up-to-date enrollment figures for courses, and course waitlists, when they are using the university’s Course Schedule to register.

Senate Resolution 1113 – “In Support of Displaying Waitlist and Enrollment Details in the Course Schedule” – calls for the Office of the Registrar to improve the university’s Course Schedule to display the enrollment cap along with the current enrollment figures for all courses. Additionally, the Resolution calls for students to be able to see how many students are on a course’s current waitlist, if there is one, before registering.

Citing the importance for students to be able to register for courses efficiently, the Resolution states that allowing students to see enrollment figures will reduce the communication burden between students and advisers required for students as they attempt to enroll in required courses.

Currently, the inability for students to see enrollment figures causes many to take unnecessary steps to plan out different scenarios to ensure that their schedules allow them to register for needed courses.

For questions or more information on S.R. 1113, contact the Resolution’s authors: Ketan Kapasi (Senate At-Large member on the Curriculum Committee) and Josh Fjelstul (co-chair of the Curriculum Committee).

Unofficial online transcripts could be made available to all current students enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin if a new Senate Resolution is passed and implemented.

Authored by Stephen Michael Vincent, a Senate At-Large member on the Curriculum Committee, Senate Resolution 1112 – “In Support of Creating Unofficial Online Transcripts” – would allow unofficial online transcripts to be issued to current students for their use only, including scholarships, financial aid, insurance purposes, etc.

Aiming to improve four-year graduation rates and advising, the Resolution cites that unofficial online transcripts would assist students in developing four-year plans by allowing them to self-monitor their goals, options, and opportunities both within and outside of the university.

In addition to improving graduation rates and academic advising, S.R. 1112 argues that unofficial online transcripts would encourage positive planning for the future, and allow students to better plan unique, post-college paths in academia, research, or the workforce by way of being more informed about their educational progress.

Along with being preferable to unofficial hard copy transcripts due to the comparably lower costs, unofficial online transcripts are expected to expedite the current process in which students are required to go to the Office of the Registrar in order to obtain an unofficial transcript.

Implementation of unofficial online transcripts is not expected to over-burden the Registrar’s office because it is currently required to maintain updated transcripts indicating student’s courses, grades, GPA, and degree(s).

For questions or more information on the legislation, contact Stephen Michael Vincent or the Curriculum Committee’s co-chairs, Josh Fjelstul and Laura Wright.