SGA Senate votes against closed captioning legislation, passes through House
SGA Senate Leader Nolan Kamoo entertains a motion to move onto another piece of legislation on the Senate agenda during an SGA meeting over WebEx on Feb. 15, 2021.
The Student Government Association's senators voted unanimously to not pass closed captioning legislation, after it was passed unanimously by the House during the Feb. 15 meeting.
SGA Representative Nova Moore's legislation would require Central Michigan University professors to turn on closed captioning in WebEx and Microsoft Teams. It would also hire a third-party transcription service at rates of $0.75 to $1 per audio hour.
Greek Life Liaison Taylor Dibble voiced her support before voting in SGA's House meeting. It was voted through unanimously without any further amendments.
SGA Senator Ramiro Garcia said that it's an "expensive investment" and he would rather have a resolution to only include turning on integrated closed captioning through Webex and Microsoft Teams instead.
"It feels like this is going to add up so much," Garcia said. "This is more of a luxury service than a necessity, whereas people with disabilities, people who actually need closed captioning, already have a service to them."
Other business
SGA Senate voted to stop Moore's LGBTQ and disability programming legislation in favor of the creation of two separate drafts. The House did the same strategy last meeting.
Central Sustainability spoke to the student body at SGA. Student sustainability coordinators Teresa Homsi and Eric Urbaniak said how sustainability is an "intersectional concept."
"When we're talking about sustainability, most people imagine windmills, recycling, green things," Homsi said. "We want to focus on social and cultural sustainability as well."
The Student Food Pantry also addressed the student body. Graduate student Abigail Claes said fighting student food insecurity this year has been an issue, serving only 17 percent of food insecure students. To combat this, they introduced "emergency bags" of food to offices around campus for any student that confides about their need for food.
"Food is one of those basic needs," Claes said. "You have to have that, or you won't be able to succeed."
