ASUN passes first two bills for the school year

The Association of Students at the Uni versity of Nebraska passed its first two bills of the school year during its meeting Wednesday.

ASUN adopted Government Bill No. 4 by voice vote. This bill concerned the naming of the new residence hall and showed support for honoring Robert Knoll, a professor and alumnus.

“As you can tell, from the information in the bill, Dr. Knoll was a special guy,” said President Megan Collins, a senior business major, adding, “We would just really like to support this.”

Both Collins and External Vice-president Amanda Crook, a senior political science major, spoke briefly about the accomplishments of Knoll, including the fact he was adviser to the NU Student Council, the predecessor to ASUN.

“All of these things are very important to him. It speaks highly to his legacy,” Crook said.

Senate Bill 3 was brought to the floor by Senator Scott Barker, a senior engineering major.

“So basically this is continuing to support game-day recycling,” he said, in order to promote sustainability.

This supported the efforts of the Environmental Resource Center and ROTC to recycle and clean up the stadium after the games.

The bill was also adopted by voice vote.

The senate also had several guests speak during open forum at the meeting.

One of them was James Guest, director of the University Health Center, who spoke about the H1N1 flu.

“Where we are right now is the novel flu is wandering around. We expect an increase (in cases),” he said.

“There was anticipation in the spring that it would mutate and become more variant,” Guest said, but in early August that changed.

“The illnesses (cases of H1N1), they last a shorter period of time than usual,” he said.

Senators had opportunities to ask questions and have them answered. One senator asked whether the university should be worried, mentioning an outbreak at Pius X High School in Lincoln.

“I was talking with the county health department, and that was only one school with an outbreak,“ Guest said, though he said it is expected that there will be some students at the university who will get H1N1.

During executive reports, Collins reminded students about Campus Nightlife, which starts tomorrow.

Both Crook and Internal Vice-president Brian Coburn, a senior biochemistry major, reminded students to let the executive board know about any communications concerning the ASUN program 475-RIDE.

“For instance, there’s a poster that says ‘Drunk? Call 475-RIDE,’ which is not what it’s about,” said Crook, who added the program is meant as a last resort for students.

“We want to eliminate the myths and put up the facts on 475-RIDE,” she said.

Other topics were briefly mentioned, including the International Student Involvement Fair and volunteering at Saturday’s tailgate.

“It’s actually a very important thing we do; it’s a tradition on campus. We fight hard to keep it going,” Coburn told the senators.

The senate was also updated on Homecoming, which will take place at the Nebraska Union from Sept. 20 to Sept. 26.

“That’s a good location, good visibility,” said Ryan Fette, the special topics committee chair and a graduate research assistant with Student Affairs.

kimbuckley@dailynebraskan.com