Manhattan University’s senate gathers for the first meeting of the spring semester.
MANHATTAN.EDU / COURTESY
Brooke Della Rocco, Senior Writer
The first Manhattan University (MU) senate meeting of the spring semester took place on Tuesday, Feb. 17, where senators spoke about current issues students and faculty face, as well as the future of campus life.
The Educational Affairs Committee (EAC) opened the meeting, with an introduction discussing several upcoming academic changes. The University-Wide Curriculum Committee (UWCC) has recently approved the reinstatement of the film minor and completed stage one of a revision to the university’s core curriculum. A new attendance policy was voted on as well, which will be present in the student code of conduct and university catalog.
“The way it was before, there were conflicting attendance policies,” Bridget Chalk, associate provost and senator said. “So we proposed one new attendance policy…There is a general expectation in this attendance policy, a student responsibility section, standard absence limits, faculty responsibility and record keeping … Guidelines around excused absences and there’s language around chronic absence and university standing.”
The EAC closed their briefing by mentioning the switch in length of summer courses from seven weeks to six weeks.
Mel Lasky, chief information officer of Information Technology (IT) Services, spoke about the challenges accompanying the switch to Microsoft. Associate professor of management and marketing, and speaker for the senate, Amir Masoumi, presented the topic by mentioning the response he has received from the campus community regarding the switch.
“People from the administration, faculty, students, they’re complaining,” Masoumi said. “I’m sure there were a lot of issues that have been addressed already, but some of us are still struggling with different issues. The agenda committee of the senate thought having Mel here would be helpful by addressing those issues.”
Lasky spoke about the switch in programs and acknowledged the numerous problems that have risen.
“We felt that in the best interest of MU, that moving to Microsoft was the way to mitigate risk and improve our cybersecurity posture as an added benefit… As well as most companies when you go out into the industry, they use Microsoft and not Google,” Lasky said. “We are working through issues, as you can imagine, with a community as large as we have [and] when you make a platform switch as big as this.”
Lasky addressed the transfer of Google Drive documents to Microsoft, and estimated the switch to take place around August 2026.
The senate went on to discuss residence life and dining service updates, including the development of new lounge rooms on the fourth floor of Kelly Commons. They will be announced as soon as possible, with all students guaranteed access.
Kristell Lowe, vice president of student life, mentioned numerous complaints she has gotten from the community and discussed them openly with attendees. A loss of dining hall mugs topped the list.
“Just to put it in context for you,” Lowe said. “Last spring we bought 400 mugs. In fall, I got the okay to buy 400 mugs, and we just bought another 600 mugs, because they go and never come back…I don’t really have a solution to be really honest with you. It’s either we transition to paper, which has a cost associated with it.”
With 1,400 mugs purchased within the last year, the student senate representatives advocated for the future use of paper to-go cups to be implemented.
Additionally, Lowe expressed her distaste with the recent early closings of Locke’s Loft Dining Hall, with food being taken away and areas being packed up before closing time. Lowe expressed her ability to address the issues with the dining service staff to prohibit further unwanted activity, including the reported decline in food quality on weekends.
Faculty senate members made a point to express their desire to have a faculty dining room on campus. Many senators expressed the added value of establishing a space like this on campus, with Lowe expressing the school’s inability to do so, due to costs.
“I don’t know that we [will] ever be in a position to bring back the faculty dining room,” Lowe said. “It is extremely costly to run, you’re really running a separate office… I do want to do something special for faculty, and we’ve been toying around [with] the idea.”
As the first senate meeting of the spring semester came to a close, senators urged students to get more of their peers involved with senate matters. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 21.