The Dixie State University student senate is on pace to break last years’ record of number of bills passed.
The student senate is a group of students that help other students reach their academic goals by using funding from student fees. They’ve allocated $10,670 for nine different bills and Legislation Day so far in this semester.
Darren Stapleton, a senior biomedical major from Syracuse, wrote a bill to receive $6,000 for a new rotary evaporator for the physical science department in November. The senate allocated over $3,700 for the evaporator, which was the highest amount of money given out all semester, including all the prize money at Legislation Day combined.
“Our current rotary evaporator is really old, and it has been losing a lot of product, which is money,” Stapleton said. “It’s also really big and bulky, so it was harder for some of the smaller girls to work with.”
Other bills passed included nearly $1,000 for students to attend a pre-med conference, $675 for an education student to teach in Switzerland, and $550 for music students to attend the Utah opera.
Warren Anderson, a senior accounting major from Santa Clara, is the vice president of academics and head of the DSU student senate. Anderson said he thinks the senate will pass as many bills this year as it did last year, if not more.
“The biggest thing that we look for is how many students will the bill affect immediately,” Warren said. “Then we look for how it will affect the institution as a whole, and how will it affect future students.”
Stapleton said students need to know about senate funding and take advantage of it.
“Undergraduate research is a huge part of a lot of applications for graduate school, and in order to do that, you need capital equipment most times,” Stapleton said.
A student can only write up one bill per semester. The senate funds up to 50 percent of each bill passed, and the department of study covers the remaining cost.
Students who contact the student senator for their departments are helped on a first come first serve basis. Senators can be contacted in the student government room on the second floor in the Gardner Student Center.
