The AS Student Senate during their meeting on Friday, Nov. 22. Joe Addison // AS Review
By Stella Harvey
AS Branding Guide
During their meeting on May 5, the Associated Students Student Senate endorsed the new AS Branding Guide with a vote of 18 in favor, zero opposed and zero abstaining. AS Communications Director Hunter Stuehm presented the new guide during the senate’s meeting on April 21. The guide includes an updated AS logo, the organization’s official tagline and colors and explains how offices within the organization can use the guide.
Ramadan Accommodations
The senate passed a resolution advocating for reasonable accommodations for Muslim students observing Ramadan with a vote of 17 votes in favor, one against and zero abstaining. Luke Arnold for the college of Fine and Performing Arts voted against the resolution, saying while he agreed with the content of the resolutions, he believed that the senate should have discussed the accommodations with the Equal Opportunity Office [EOO] first.
Senators Abdul-Malik Ford for the College of Business and Economics and Rukhsar Sadat for Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies presented a resolution with help from Selome Zerai, VP for activities. Ramadan is a religious event in Islam where observers abstain from food and water from sunrise to sunset for one month, according to the resolution. This year, Ramadan began on April 23, and will end on May 23. The resolution asks that faculty grant students observing Ramadan a 12-hour extension on all assignments.
Last year, the Washington State Legislature passed a law requiring faculty to reasonably accommodate students who miss class or assignments to observe religious holidays, but Ford and Sadat are concerned this requirement is being overlooked. Zerai said that there needs to be a more clear definition of what reasonable accommodations look like.
Before they passed the resolution, the senate voted on taking the drafted resolution to the EOO with a vote of four in favor, 11 against and three abstaining. Leti Romo, the senate’s program advisor, suggested that Ford and Sadat first meet with representatives at the EOO to review their concerns and learn more about Western’s religious accommodations policy.