On March 18, 2021, Fordham United Student Government (USG) held its weekly senate meeting. 

Senator Phillip Krehbiel, FCRH ’23, proposed his initiative to unify Fordham’s Zoom policy and create a two-minute grace period for logging onto a class.

Krehbiel surveyed other Fordham students about a two-minute grace period for logging onto zoom and reported that 85% of students said it would be helpful. 

The grace period would allow time for students to find their class link without being counted absent by professors, said Krehbiel. 

Krehbiel’s proposal also included a clause that all professors will have to put their Zoom links on Blackboard. Even if they use a different platform for class, students should be able to find all their class links on Blackboard, said Krehbiel.  

Senator Krehbiel’s proposal passed, pending a couple of small errors, and should be in effect shortly.

Another proposal was presented to the senate this week from the Diversity Action Coalition (DAC) which is led by Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion Arianna Chen, FCRH ’22.

The proposal was a statement in support of integrating gender pronouns into the administrative system in addition to basic information the university already has. 

The pronoun policy will go hand-in-hand with Fordham’s chosen name policy so resident assistants, resident directors and professors will have students’ chosen names as well as their chosen pronouns. 

This proposal passed in the senate and Fordham will begin integrating the chosen pronoun policy into all student forms. 

The Pre-Physician Assistant Club presented in the senate this week. The club strives to provide information to those who are interested in the physician assistant career path. The club passed and will become an official club on campus.

There has been a rise in COVID-19 cases in freshmen residence halls, and USG will discuss ways to help lower these numbers with administration.