Council Clippings: Senate learns about pandemic response

The Graduate Student Senate (GSS) met Tuesday Jan. 23. Two bills were passed and quorum was lost before another bill could be voted on.

The first bill brought before the senate was the joint allocation to the Women's Soccer Club. The organization was asking for funds to buy new uniforms for the team because the ones they currently have are over four years old.

The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) recommended striking socks from the bill because socks are a personal item and would not stay with the team after the player left and, therefore, could not be funded by SGA. That reduced the bill down to 3540.39 dollars.

The bill was amended in accordance with the JFC recommendation and passed the senate by way of unanimous acclamation.

The second bill brought before the senate was the joint allocation to the Chinese Friendship Association. The organization was asking for funds to throw its Chinese New Year gala in the Ferst Center. The organization was using the SGA as its only source of funding and was not charging admission to the event. The JFC recommended striking several lines from the bill down to a total of 6440.50 dollars from the prior year account.

A motion was made to postpone the bill, but the motion failed.

A motion was made to amend according to JFC and the motion passed.

Another motion was made to readmit 900 dollars that had been stricken from the bill, but the motion failed.

Another motion was made to take out an additional 2,200 dollars from the final total and amend the line items accordingly, but that motion also failed.

The bill was finally brought to a vote and passed the senate.

A presentation was given by Cindy Smith, director of Health Services, Rosalind Meyers, associate vice president of Auxiliary Services, and Teresa Crocker, chief of police, at the beginning of the meeting about Tech's readiness in case of an Avian Flu pandemic. Tech's response to a pandemic is broken into six phases.

The first phase is normal conditions. The second phase is if a case has been confirmed in U.S. animals. The third phase is if a confirmed case outside the U.S. with a human transmitting it to a human. The fourth phase is a confirmed case of a human to human case within the U.S. The fifth phase is a suspected or confirmed case within Fulton County. The sixth phase is a suspected or confirmed case on campus.

Each phase carries its own set of responses to the potential threat. The presentation's purpose was to spell out these potential responses and let the students know that the administration is looking into the threat of Avian Flu and how to react should campus be threatened.

In his report of the president, Mitch Keller, the graduate student body president, said that the movement to have the payroll deduction is moving "full speed ahead" and should be online in Fall 2007 as long as OIT does not run into any snags along the way. Keller also reported that the Mandatory Student Fee Allocation Committee voted to raise the health fee by four dollars, the technology fee by three dollars, and the transportation fee by one dollar. The committee did not vote on the athletic fee during its session.