In the final meeting of the semester, the ASUA Senate heard about the final funding of the past and got a glimpse into its future with the Arizona Students’ Association legislative agenda for next year as well as several other updates for next semester.
The Associated Students of the University of Arizona Senate heard about ASA’s legislative mission to collaborate with the veterans’ office to provide in-state tuition options for veterans.
The 9/11 GI Bill, an extension of the previous Montgomery GI Bill, gives honorably discharged veterans, with a minimum of either 90 total days of active-duty service or 30 continuous days, three years of in-state tuition plus a living and book stipend. This is available up to 15 years after active duty.
But when some veterans are stationed, they are not eligible for state tuition, and are paying out-of-state prices with an in-state budget, according to Taylor Bell, legislative member of the Arizona Students’ Association.
Some universities are a part of the Yellow Ribbon Program, which allows additional funds to cover these types of disparities, but at the UA, the program is only available to the first 250 applicants, and is not guaranteed to allow for additional funds.
The Veterans’ office has their own legislative branch, according to Elma Delic, board chair of ASA, with “”their own legislative agenda that we (ASA) are aligning ourselves with.””
Also, tackling common course numbering versus a virtual numbering system is also on ASA’s 2011 agenda. In talks Wednesday, the recommendation of the board was to move forward with the virtual numbering system and complete a pilot program for common course numbering to see the results.
Senate Bill 1186, the common course numbering bill signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer in September, was written by Arizona Students’ Association members to ease transfer of credits between Arizona community colleges and universities for students.
ASUA President Emily Fritze also spoke about looking into the future, including bylaw changes for the new activities board that is to be dissolved into the greater framework of ASUA as well as a student fee statement that she is projecting to be done sometime over the winter break. She urged the senators to be vigilant even during finals and winter break as to get the ball rolling fast when coming back in January.
Katherine Weingartner ended her report to senate with these words for next semester: “”I hope we hit it hard.””
