SGA bill demands 24-hour visitation in residence halls

Student government leaders on Monday decided to send the university administration a bill that calls for 24-hour visitation in all student residence halls- a bill officials previously promised to enact after the Student Government Association conducted an online housing survey.

Emad Maghsoudi, Senate vice chairman and sponsor of the bill, said the administration, after years of negotiation, made a promise to uphold results of an online survey completed by students living in residential halls about the extension of visitation policies.

“Basically what happened was the administration was like ‘OK, let’s take a vote within all the people that live in the residential halls, and whatever they decide to do is what we will do next year,'” Maghsoudi said. “And we were sort of promised it would change, but it didn’t.”

Earlier this semester, Eddie O’Leary, student body president, said he promised the Senate the visitation policy would change if the survey results showed students supported the 24-hour visitation.

“I promised that when we had this vote it would change. I was wrong,” O’Leary said. “And the reason why I got in front of you all and promised that was because I was promised by a very high member of the administration.”

O’Leary said the SGA conducted the survey of 1,500 students and 1,149 responded. Of those who responded, he said, 94 percent chose the extended 24-hour visitation policy. However, the administration, O’Leary said, continues to argue that a small percentage of students don’t want the hours changed.

“They went against their promise,” O’Leary said. “And this is the very first step in pressuring them.”

Senators unanimously passed the resolution.

In other business, students can expect to see a new feature on VCU’s Monroe Park Campus by the time they return for the fall semester. The Senate approved the “Operation Ram the Streets” bill that implements multiple-colored paintings of the VCU logo on the streets around campus.

Sen. Byran Banning wrote the bill after he visited the University of Virginia campus that had painted its logo on the streets throughout campus. In a previous interview, Banning said he thought this logo would help promote school spirit.

“Putting the official VCU logo on the streets of campus will help promote community and school spirit,” Banning said. “It will attract automobile attention. It will be good for prospective students and will be an additional way to publicize VCU.”

The paintings, Banning said, would replicate the official VCU athletic logo with VCU’s colors of black and gold. He estimated logos would be about 10-by-10 feet square, and he wants at least five to six painted around campus.

He named the following campus sites:

 the intersections of Shafer and Franklin streets

 Harrison and Broad streets

 Main Street between the Student Commons and

Temple

 Floyd Street between the Student Commons and

Cabell Library

 Cary Street at the end of the brick walkway

 Laurel Street in front of Johnson Hall

 Grace and Pine streets

 Park and Grove avenues

 Belvidere Street next to the new business and

engineering building

Sen. Nusrat Chowdhury called the proposal a wonderful idea.

“It’s wonderful,” Chowdhury said, chair of the publicity committee. “We’ve had bills involving campus beautification before, but most are failures. … This is good publicity, not just for us, but for new students and their families.”

In a 28-3 vote, senators appointed E.J. White for the position of associate justice on SGA’s judicial board.

White, a transfer student from Tidewater Community College, has been studying political science with a prelaw concentration at VCU since last August.

In a later interview, White said his first order of business would be to develop a working relationship with the other members of the judicial board. White also said he wants to ensure that SGA continues to represent the interests of the student body and that conflict doesn’t get in the way of that.