Asbury Student Congress announces new clubs, proposals and updates for new studying areas for students around campus.
Despite the issue of the Extended Library Hours Proposal being the main focus, the meeting started with two club proposals: Pre-PT/Allied Health Club and Pre-Vet Club.
The Pre-PT/Allied Health Club is a student-led club for individuals pursuing or expressing interest in physical therapy and allied health professions. The club seeks to provide professional development opportunities, host informational sessions and guest speakers and facilitate discussion-based experiences that expand students’ knowledge and understanding of their representative field of interest.
While the club appeals to students studying exercise science and other related majors, the club is open for anyone interested in strength and conditioning, nutrition and anything regarding allied health. Membership is open to any student who maintains a minimum GPA of 2.5 and is in good academic and disciplinary standing with the institution. Members are required to pay an annual fee of $10. The club will hold at least one all-member meeting per month but additional meetings may be scheduled as needed.
The proposal for the club passed and President Abi Bruner, Vice President Max Bramer and other members will be moving forward with their plans for the club.
The other club proposed was the Pre-Veterinary Club, which was introduced by Abby Stephenson and Natalie Ison.
The Pre-Vet Club is affiliated with Christian Veterinary Mission (CVM) and their arm Christian Veterinary Fellowship (CVF).
The CVF groups are branches of CVM on veterinary, pre-veterinary and veterinary tech school campuses. The club provides opportunities for service, support, Bible study, missions and community to students looking to share Christ’s love through veterinary medicine.
The club will seek to equip pre-vet students with the tools necessary to succeed academically and grow spiritually while at Asbury, so that they might gain successful admission to the veterinary school of their choice while developing a solid base of habits and practices that will facilitate their success at and beyond Asbury in any animal science field.
Students interested in the veterinary field have been meeting for many years, but the club provides a way for students to meet officially.
Any Asbury student who is interested in veterinary medicine is invited to participate in club meetings, which will be held three times a semester.
The rest of the meeting, aside from ASC-focused proposals, was devoted to discussion of the Extended Library Hours proposal.
Anna DeLouch wrote the proposal after students expressed a need during the recent ASC Townhall for access to spaces and resources utilized for studying and academic success. The proposal advocates for Kinlaw Library hours to be extended to 11:50 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday and for the Shaw CLC to be open to students on the weekends.
Although the proposal attempts to fix a common problem for students on campus, faculty advisor Brittany Worthen highlighted many issues caused by the proposal.
The extended hours will not be funded by the student government, but by Asbury as an institution. Budgets for the university are planned for the next year and the prior year, so if the proposal were to be passed, it would not be implemented until later.
Aside from the timeline, the budgeting falling onto the university raises other issues with how funding is allocated to other student services and the funding in general.
Worthen briefly mentioned how Asbury has recently undergone budget cuts in the last few months that have affected staff members and other services around campus. If Asbury was to provide additional budgets to put the proposal into place, such as additional workers in the library, more CLC hours or more pay for safety workers, they would have to take money from another area to put it into this proposal. Therefore, any money going towards this proposal, would require a reallocation of funds from other areas.
Other issues with the proposal include no possibility of anything being open on Sunday due to rules within the university and the Director of Library Services, Bethany Groves, already planning to propose extended hours for the library on next year’s budget.
However, despite all of the issues with extending library hours, Worthen mentioned the heart of the students’ problem lies in the lack of quiet study spaces on campus.
After discussion from ASC members, it was decided for Vice President of Student Life, Joe Bruner, to propose open hours at the CLC and withhold from voting on the Extended Hours proposal.
ASC acknowledged that the extended CLC hours are not the concrete solution to the issue that students are stressing, but a starting point for future solutions.
If students have any questions regarding the proposals or clubs mentioned during the meeting, they can contact the Executive Cabinet through email or by visiting their offices in the STUCE basement for more information on proposals or if they have concerns.
