On Monday, Feb. 7, SGA donated $1,000 to lactation suites, discussed possibilities of mask status turning to yellow and gave updates on the African/African American studies program.

The senate passed a motion with all 36 votes to donate up to $1,000 from the SGA reserves for the lactation suite that is getting built in the 3rd floor of Irby, as well as the remodel of the lactation suite in Estes Stadium.

Vice President of Student Affairs Robin Williamson spoke at the meeting, expressing her care for students.

“We know that being a college student is complicated and hard,” Williamson said. “You’ve got a lot going on. There’s a lot of things happening. You’re trying to figure out who it is you want to be in this world and get all these things done. Then we add in a pandemic, and it makes it 

even harder.”

Williamson introduced a new care team model and its leader, Kelly Owens. Owens said the team is going to be made of faculty and staff that are able to respond to any of the concerns turned into them.

Owens said there is a team related to this same process — the Behavioral Intervention Team. However, by the time the BIT gets a report, the situation has elevated to a crisis.

“We don’t want to respond to student concerns once they’re in a crisis,” Owens said. “So what the care team will do, I will have a team of faculty and staff that will be able to reach out once we get a report.”

Owens said that students, faculty and staff can turn in a student of concern report.

“And if we get a student of concern report on a student, we can assign a case management to one of our team members,” Owens said.

Owens said the team should start accepting reports in the fall of 2022. 

Randy Pastor also spoke at the meeting, addressing covid-related concerns.

“Our positivity rate the first week back to school, when you all came back to classes, was 45%,” Pastor said. “Then the next week, we went to 35%, then 25%. Last week, we were at 20%.”

Pastor said he is happy about where the university stands when it comes to positive tests.

“So probably for the first time in two years, there’s a real good chance that you’re going to be able to get rid of your mask and not have to put it back on again,” Pastor said. “As soon as we reach a positivity rate less than 5% on campus, with our caseload being less than 50 per 100,000, then we go to the yellow [status] mask,” Pastor said.

The Chair of Academic Affairs committee, Makenna Goss, gave an update on the African-African American Studies program.

Goss said that there is a working group of faculty that will send progress reports to the president on how the program is doing and what they can do better. She also mentioned getting advisors involved to help spread awareness of the program.

Goss said that regardless of what happens with the major, UCA does not plan to cut classes that are offered in the major and minor right now.