The Undergraduate Student Government general council elected its transfer and senior class senator, listened to presentations about staff online learning resources and a proposal for a new STEAM complex, and further discussed an S-D-R grading option at its Dec. 10 meeting.

Special elections

USG conducted special elections to fill the roles of transfer and senior class senator.

Senior class senator candidate Bailey Keffer said that the university’s response to COVID-19 was the most pressing issue for the senior class, while candidate Anachie Stueve said that continuing to denounce hate is a top priority.

“Being a female student with a disability has taught me how to advocate for myself,” Stueve said, “and I promise to use my skills toward action favoring an elevated St. Thomas community experience.”

Bailey Keffer was elected as Senior Senator and Munir Maalim was elected Transfer Senator.

STEAM complex

Chief of Staff Amy McDonough presented the plans to build a new Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) complex.

The complex will be built in place of Loras Hall on South Campus, and will add more lab space for St. Thomas’ growing Engineering program and upcoming Nursing program.

The complex will be built with the goals of sustainability and inclusivity in mind.

“As we build it, both physically as well as build the programs that go inside this new complex, diversity and inclusion is really a goal of the whole project,” McDonough said.

St. Thomas will have to get permission from the City of St. Paul to tear down Loras Hall, since it is in the historic preservation district.

The complex will be funded with tuition dollars and donor contributions.

“This is a really big project and we have really generous donors that are lined up to support this STEAM complex,” McDonough said.

Staff preparedness

Interim Associate Vice President of E-learning Lisa Burke and Associate Vice President of Faculty Advancement Ann Johnson gave a presentation on pandemic-time faculty resources.

These departments offered online teaching certificates, faculty forums and “lunch and learns” to prepare professors for the semester moving largely online. Curriculum was not the only focus of these initiatives.

“We understood right away that student mental health was going to be a priority issue for all of us,” Johnson said.

Following a semester with a lot of online instruction, Burke and Johnson are interested to hear how their strategies preparing staff members have worked out.

“We want to hear what the student experiences and know how we can make improvements to what we’re doing,” Burke said.

USG gave Burke and Johnson some brief, anonymous feedback focusing on the strong parts of online learning.

S-D-R Grading discussion

USG continued last week’s discussion of transitioning to S-D-R grading due to educational changes from the pandemic.

S-D-R grading gives students the option to receive a pass, D or a fail on their transcript as opposed to a different letter grade.

USG executive members discussed last week’s discussion with members of the administration. Tiaryn Daniels reminded USG that this decision is ultimately up to university Provost Richard Plumb.

Daniels has also gotten some professor feedback and feels as though the staff is “almost like a 50/50 split” in terms of support for offering S-D-R grading.

“One of the professors had talked about a concern that students may take advantage of S-D-R grading,” Daniels said, “maybe they did all S-D-R in spring and then they’re going to do all S-D-R again in the fall and (this professor is concerned about) what that means for the St. Thomas transcript.”

Greater Minnesota/Out of State Senator Ben Hogan emphasized the importance of student choice.

“I think that giving students a choice here is ultimately the best decision,” Hogan said, “and there will always be a couple of students that poorly take advantage of that, but ultimately I feel like that’s on their education.”

As of now, the administration has not made a final decision about S-D-R grading this fall.

Finance requests

USG unanimously approved a request of $1,050 to the Society for Human Resource Management for catering and marketing.

Angeline Terry can be reached at terr2351@stthomas.edu.