By RAEGAN NEUFELD
Tiger Media Network
The Student Government Association had conversations about a range of topics that affect both current and former students at its meeting on Thursday.
Sen. Logan Erichsen discussed a request from one of his professors, asking for more detailed guidance on how to accommodate Muslim students during Ramadan. According to Erichsen, the university did provide some guidance prior to the start of Ramadan on March 10, but the professor ran into a problem with a student requesting excused absences for 10 days.
While the professor was willing to push back tests during the period of fasting, he felt he could not reteach 10-days worth of material and needed the student in class. He then asked Erichsen about guidelines from the university, SGA and faculty senate on defining reasonable absence requirements.
“The Muslim student population is getting bigger, and he wants to help accommodate them and make sure everybody’s satisfied,” Erichsen said.
Erichsen had talked to SGA advisor and Director of International Student Services Carol Solko-Olliff about the issue, who addressed it at the meeting. Solko-Olliff said a member of her office spoke to the president of the Muslim Students Association about the situation, who did not think it was appropriate to ask for 10 excused absences.
“After Ramadan we’re going to meet with the president of MSA and some of the other students and help educate them on how to approach their faculty about absences, but also on how faculty can meet in the middle,” she said.
Solko-Ollif also gave direction for a concern brought up by one of Sen. Alicia Feyerherm’s constituents. The student is taking one class during the upcoming summer term but also working an on-campus job.
“Apparently, if you’re on campus, you can work full-time over the summer, but if you take any classes over the summer, your work is capped, so she’s now looking at getting a second job so that she can work full-time,” Feyerherm said.
Solko-Ollif said the student can make an appeal through her department. SGA President Ella Burrows also suggested speaking to Lisa Carlin in Career Services.
The senators heard from Assistant Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Mark Griffin. He spoke about why the university is no longer offering life-long email accounts for former students.
Students’ emails will now be disabled one year after leaving FHSU. According to Griffin, the cost of providing security measures for each account is too expensive.
“It doesn’t fall within the university’s mission in such that, we want to provide high quality and affordable education to our students,” he said. “Providing these services to our former students really doesn’t match with that.”
Griffin was asked about the possibility of disabling some security measures, like the Duo two-factor authentication, for former students, but he said the university’s cyber insurance company is pushing to require it.
According to Griffin, approximately 20,000 former students used their FHSU email within the last two years.
Other SGA news
- SGA executive staff applications are open on TigerLink through April 19. The treasurer, public relations director, legislative affairs director and diversity, equity and inclusion positions are open.
- The SGA Spring Open Forum is April 24 at 5 p.m. in the Stouffer Lounge. Panelists will be Burrows, University Police Department Chief Terry Pierce, a representative from Residential Life and one of the assistant vice presidents.
The next SGA meeting will be at 7 p.m. on April 11 in the Black and Gold Room.