SGA passes resolution to adopt excused mental health day
By Gabriel Donahue, Editor-in-Chief
The Towson University Student Government Association Tuesday approved a resolution to adopt one excused student mental health day per semester.
Thirteen of 14 senators voted in favor of the resolution with one abstaining. The resolution will move to the Academic Senate, the faculty-led policy-making body. If approved, it will be amended to university policy.
“School is already hard, life is already hard, and we just wanna show that we are representing our students in every single way possible,” Government Operations Chair Clifton Crosby Jr. said.
He introduced the resolution alongside President Pro-Tempore Edmund Rhynes Jr. and Directors Latavia Edwards and Kayla Brown on Nov. 14.
All fee-paying students, both undergraduate and graduate, would be granted the mental health days. Crosby Jr. said some details, such as how they would apply in conjunction with professors’ absence policies, are still unclear.
“From my understanding, your absences are gonna be per your class in that syllabus, so it’ll just be added on,” Crosby Jr. said. “If you have some that’s like ‘you can’t miss any class,’ you can miss this one.”
Some SGA members questioned the timeframe of when students would need to contact professors about using the day — another detail to be ironed out.
The 103rd SGA administration, which ran under the name The Marathon Continues, prioritized creating excused mental health days during its election campaign, according to a message from President Jordan Colquitt.
Tuesday’s general assembly meeting also saw the first reading of Senate Bill 11 that would make SGA documents accessible through Freedom of Information Act requests.
“We push transparency, we push the knowledge of our documents and our information to be out there,” Sen. Steven Watson-White said.
Watson-White introduced the bill.
Colquitt said the SGA is already working on making its documents more publicly accessible and requested a SharePoint site for them last week.
Gabriel Donahue
Gabe Donahue has held numerous positions within The Towerlight. He started as a writer before becoming the News Editor, and now he serves as Editor-in-Chief.
