On Nov. 30, UW-Platteville’s Student Senate met via Zoom, joined briefly by Vice Chancellor Rose Smyrski and representatives of the University Relations Office. The representatives discussed current activity in the University Relations Office and Student Senate had their own agenda, including proof-reading a proposal to the Chancellor on why students should not be recorded during exams.
University Relations explained what they did as an external entity, or a part of UW-Platteville that works outside of the university. This would be marketing, communications, fundraising, alumni, corporate relations, events, government relations and accounting.
Craig Beytien, the director of corporate relations, explained that UW-Platteville was recently awarded a half-million dollar grant for the development of the business accelerator, which isan organization that offers a range of support services and funding opportunities for business startups.
On this topic, Smyrski said, “part of the rationale for that is to encourage not only students and the faculty at UW-Platteville, but also to create a space for folks in the greater community… to encourage entrepreneurial-type activity.” More information will be spread about this during the spring.
The Student Senate has been creating a resolution called the “Student Webcam Privacy Resolution” that will be either denied or approved by the Chancellor. Senator Daniel Piotrowski explained, “students were complaining about being recorded by Respondus and that the recordings are kept for an indefinite amount of time, so essentially what this resolution does, is it calls for faculty to stop recording students through any sort of exam proctoring service as well as delete all recordings that they currently have.” This resolution will be finalized and voted on by the Student Senate on Dec. 7 before going to the Chancellor.
They also explained that the spring career fair will be held Feb. 25. There are high hopes for this spring now that everyone has had practice with the online element, including the 200 businesses experiencing all of this online for the first time as well. In addition, the one-on-one interviews between students and businesses will be extended from ten minutes to fifteen minutes due to feedback. The numbers last fall were also surprising, according to Beytien. Usually, the UW-Platteville “in-person” career fair has around 2,000 people, as in2019, and while this fall only had 1,300 people, the percentage of people who signed up without going was only 2.6% compared to near 50% nationally.
Linda Mulroy-Bowden, UW-Platteville’s University Title IX Coordinator, spoke about reporting sexual assault, which readers can do and find resources for through the various UW-Platteville website pages including University Campus Police, Residence Life, Dean of Students and Student Health Services.