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| Senate Resolves To Oppose Atrocities Against Humans | ||||||
| Susana Gonzalez, executive director of the Cal State Long Beach California State Student Association, gave a presentation to the Associated Students Senate on Wednesday pinpointing the importance of the organization in relation to student government activities. | ||||||
| The Association, which helps to foster the "free spirited interchange of ideas and methods of operation between individual student governments of the CSU and CSSA," serves as the "single recognized voice for the approximately 400,000 students in the California State University system." �Gonzalez reminded the Senate of its importance when it comes to campus politics and making decisions. | ||||||
| In other news, the Senate passed the second draft of a resolution jointly created by Dana Lebental, campus conservation commissioner, and Senators Hironao Okahana and Daniel Rukhman, which requires that the construction and renovation of any new building on campus be built to current environmental standards. �Lebental said that the actual certification, which costs $50,000, will allow Cal State Long Beach to have "bragging rights" against other campuses that are not as environmentally sensitive. | ||||||
| The Senate also voted to send a resolution opposing "Crimes Against Humanity, Ethnic Atrocities and Human Rights Violations" to Documents & Bylaws for further editing. �The resolution is the product of the Turkish Student Association's dissatisfaction with the original document that passed last semester denouncing acts of genocide, brought forth by the Armenian Student Association. �The two groups worked together to create the new document, which will have the Senate "[recognize] a discrepancy in the facts brought before [it] by the Armenian Student Association and the Turkish Student Association." | ||||||
| Sen. Rebekah Smith took issue with this, saying she believed it would make the Senate look inefficient, but Sen. Morgan Wheeler disagreed.� "We did not look at the facts," he said. | ||||||
| Mike Hostetler, dean of students, commended the Senate for urging the two student associations to work together and "agree to disagree," as the new resolution says.� "The mission statement of the Associated Students, Incorporated," according to the resolution, "is more suitably fulfilled by adopting a universal standpoint opposing all atrocities against all humans and human rights violations worldwide."� It also clarified that the "Senate will not refrain from dealing with social issues, 'if necessary,' but will in fact refrain from dealing with, or taking any position on historically debated and controversial events." �The Senate said that it hopes that the two groups can work together and remain on good terms, despite this historical debate. | ||||||
| Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2004, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | ||||||
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