Jason Conrad

Contributing Writer

The university senate meeting, held on Dec. 1 via Zoom, contained multiple announcements and discussions. The meeting discussed the recreational use of the new campus tennis court, an AI task force, and an in-depth discussion on how ESU maintains its profitability.

“I asked our Chief Information Officer to formulate a task group to review the use of AI throughout the university…I think it’s due time that we have some type of guidelines or policy on AI,” stated Kenneth Long, fourteenth president at ESU.

He went on to talk about how the effective use of AI will be put into policies, as well as the voting process such policies will need to go through before being implemented.

President Long commented about the decision to reconstruct the campus’ tennis courts, and how the appearance of the old courts had a negative impact on the university’s appearance.

“The first thing you used to see from that side was a rundown tennis court…it’s critical, the top 10 reasons students pick an institution is the appearance,” he said.

The last couple of comments made by President Long during the meeting were aimed at when the courts will be open to recreational use.

“Right before Thanksgiving break, we received a full certificate of occupancy,” said Long, “so, we will probably re-engage opening that up at the start of the Spring semester.”

A new proposal was presented by Margaret Ball, Vice President of Academic Affairs, to have a “monthly Way of the Warrior recognition procedure.”

She provides context to this procedure, and that it aims to “recognize individuals in the university’s community who exemplify the seven principles of The Way of the Warrior.” She mentions how three awards, for students, faculty and staff, will be given out each month to those that deserve recognition.

Amaya Cox, member of the Student Government Association, brought up a survey the SGA conducted with around 102 students.

She stated, “About 57% said the advertisement of the Warrior Tutoring Center could use work.” Cox also brought up students’ concerns about the lack of interaction between professors and students, and how it may be affecting class attendance. Another issue she brought up was that “a lot of students advocated for professors being evaluated on a regular basis.”

A presentation was given by Shawn Munford, the Faculty Athletics Representative, about the recent GPA rise in student athletes and how well our school has been performing academically compared to other universities’ athletes.

“Our student athletes almost have a 3.4 GPA. That’s 700 unduplicated students at a 3.4, which is amazing.” He continues by pointing out how presidential scholarships, on top of athletic aid, is the reason ESU is a little more “attractive,” according to Munford, compared to other institutions’ tuition.

More statistics are brought up by Munford, describing how ESU has been ranked athletically compared to other Division II schools. “Out of around 250 Division II schools, we ranked 31st in terms of athletics…Baseball was fifth out of 250, lacrosse was ninth.”

The last thing commented on were the issues regarding the multi-factor authentication everyone at ESU must go through to login to their accounts.

“Unfortunately, multi-factor is now apart of life,” stated Robert Smith, Chief Information and Technology Officer. He also made comments about how it always has to pop-up, even after repeated sign-ins.

Regarding multi-factor authentication, Smith comments about how security and data is being attacked “thousands of times a day.” He claims it is a necessary step for faculty and students to have to make to prevent data breaches.

Some compromises were made at the meeting over multi-factors. The meeting adjourned soon after a few brief comments and questions.