The Associated Students of Madison’s Legislative Affairs committee weighed the possibility of lobbying to affect alcohol policy downtown and diversity training for campus police in its Monday meeting.
Last month, Legislative Affairs Chair Hannah Somers asked committee members to lobby on an issue that they felt was important to the student body.
Legislative Affairs member Karen Scott met with Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, to discuss concerns about diversity in the City of Madison, which led to discussions of diversity training for police forces.
Legislative Affairs members Maria Giannopoulos and Devon Maier also met with Resnick to discuss the Alcohol License Density Ordinance and increasing the number of 18 and over entertainment venues in the downtown area.
ALDO, which puts a cap on how many bars are allowed in downtown Madison is set to expire within the next one year to 18 months.
“There is a new alcohol policy being developed, but it’s still very ‘in the process,'” Maier said. “This means that ASM could do a lot to influence it and have some say in how the plan is devised.”
The committee also focused on its concerns about the state’s biennial budget, and talked about how to best address these issues.
“We plan to coordinate with United Council and the Board of Regents as well as other student representatives and to see what priorities they would have concerning the budget,” Legislative Affairs member Sam Seering said.
Seering and Somers both emphasized the importance of reaching out to other student groups to get their perspectives on the budget plans.
Scott expressed her concerns about how the budget could affect attracting professors and retaining the faculty currently at the university.
Professors tend not to move here because pay is pretty low for faculty compared to other universities, said Scott. This becomes a problem because good faculty means that the university will get more grants, and fewer grants could lead to an increase in tuition.
“When a university is underfunded, the faculty will be asking for tuition increases to compensate,” committee member Leland Pan said.
Scott added these issues are interrelated, since if a university can’t get enough professors to teach graduate level classes, then the result is less graduate students and then professors are left teaching entry-level courses, which can often lead teaching assistants to leave classes.
“Defunding universities leads to less faculty and TAs, and cutting classes and programs results in larger class sizes which could be detrimental to students’ ability to learn,” Pan said.
