At last week's Student Senate meeting, the Senate reformed the relatively new Freedom of Information Policy, organized hurricane relief efforts, and took attempts to reform the undergraduate printing quota to a new level. This was the third meeting of the Student Senate this year, yet it was relatively busy with new business and chair reports. 

The alteration of the Freedom of Information Policy, which provides procedure for information requests and increases organizational transparency, made it harder for the Senate to hold closed executive session meetings on sensitive issues, requiring a two-thirds vote to exclude any press or general students.

Petitions for an appeal for information withheld from Senate can now be submitted with a single signature, not the 25-student petition required in the past. Rejection of those petitions also became a more arduous task for Senate, requiring a three-fourths vote to silence such petitions from discussion.

"If more than 10 senators want to hear a petition, it's worthwhile," said Internal Development chair Joe Arasin, an SCS junior, after there were some initial challenges to the proportion of senators required to shut out an appeal.

Some smaller modifications of the policy included a provision to upload a compressed file of every semester's worth of Student Senate meeting minutes, and the removal of several superfluous financing sentences. 

Student Body President Tom Sabram and Student Body Vice-President Nicolette Louissaint spoke briefly on hurricane aid organization, after an informal information session was held earlier in the afternoon. A committee titled Operation Katrina Aid and Relief Effort (K.A.R.E.) will spearhead the effort and monitor all student organizations involved in hurricane relief events. The committee was expected to be formed last weekend. Additional information on the relief efforts at Carnegie Mellon can be found at http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/katrina/. 

The Business Affairs chairman, CFA senior Trevor Clark, took various complaints about the new printer quota to the printer policy makers. "I don't think [the changes] will be approved, but hopefully we can get these issues across," said Clark.

Editor's Note: There was an error in the originally published article. The sentence, "The alteration of the Freedom of Information Policy... made it harder for the Senate to hold closed executive session meetings on sensitive issues, requiring a two-thirds vote to exclude any press or general students" read "The alteration of the Freedom of Information Policy... made it easier for the Senate to hold closed executive session meetings on sensitive issues, requiring only a two-thirds vote to exclude any press or general students."

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