Student Senators created some New Year’s resolutions of their own during Tuesday night’s Senate meeting.
Student Body President Jordan Johnson stopped by and spoke with senators about upcoming issues for 2010.
Johnson discussed the recent changes to Bright Futures policy, the possible debut of textbook rental programs and the question of mandatory student health insurance as major items on the Student Senate to-do list.
“This semester is ultimately going to be determined by the job we’re going to do up in Tallahassee,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the Student Senate will discuss a bill coming forth in the State Legislature that would decide whether Florida colleges should mandate health insurance for students.
Mandatory health insurance would result in a 5 percent to 7 percent rise in the cost of college for uninsured students, he said.
Johnson said the obvious downside would be the additional expense for students, but students would benefit from having extra protection in case of accident or illness.
“It’s a tough conversation, and there’s definitely two sides to the story,” he told the Senate. “There always is.”
Earlier in the meeting, Orange and Blue Party Sen. Jonathan Ossip said he plans on discussing the Reitz Union fee in next week’s meeting.
Ossip said the Orange and Blue Party plans on presenting a resolution at next week’s meeting that advocates putting a question about the fee on the spring election ballot.
He said the question would have two parts: It would ask students if there should be a fee and if the fee should cover expansion as well as renovations.
“We really just want to give students as much of a choice in this matter as possible,” Ossip said.
The discussion took a more somber turn as Senators remembered students who died during the fall 2009 semester, including Daniel J. Arena, Samantha Grosse and Erin Pelton.
Senators unanimously passed a resolution honoring the students and offering condolences to their families and friends.
