The first order of business was to appoint Trent Fulton to the Education seat and Ben Cowley for the Maurer School of Law seat.
Both were voted in unanimously. Fulton proceeded to explain to everyone why he was interested in being appointed to the education seat.
“I want to represent the School of Ed to make sure they have proper funding,” Fulton said. “I’m excited to learn more and do the best that I can.”
Cowley said he believes that he has a lot to offer in representing the Maurer School of Law.
Alex Ingoglia, sponsor and representative of Indiana Oversight and Reform Committee, addressed congress about the redistribution of congress seats.
“We wanted to create a sub-committee and open up all congress in case this is something that someone is interested in,” Ingoglia said. “We wanted to open it up in case anyone else wanted to put in some time, put in some work and try to improve congress as a whole.”
The redistribution of congress seats passed unanimously. The final resolution of the night was the designation of gender-neutral restrooms.
Maggie Oates of the School of Informatics addressed the congress on this proposal.
Oates said that the aim was to put gender-neutral bathrooms on all single-gender floors in residence halls that have two ?bathrooms.
“The reason we are doing this is because a lot of transgender students don’t have access to a bathroom on their floor that they feel comfortable using,” she said. “A lot of times people go to the first floor to shower, to go to the bathroom every single day because they don’t feel comfortable on their own floor.”
Andrew Guenther represents the College of Arts and Sciences and doubles as the director of social advocacy for the Residence Hall Association. He is also an opinion columnist for the Indiana Daily Student.
He noted that this affects transgender and cisgender students alike.
“One of the main complaints we get from both transgender students and non-transgender students is there is not an option for students living on a single-gender floor, who either don’t identify with a gender or for their guests who identify with a gender to use a restroom on the floor as other students on co-ed floors,” Guenther said. “It would help both transgender students and cisgender students as well as make residence halls more accessible for everybody and more accepting of ?everybody.”
The resolution was passed. At the conclusion of the meeting Vice President of IUSA Congress Will Wartenberg said a proposal to change the default print setting of IU computers to double-sided will be voted on next meeting.
