Student Council discussed implementing a new CIO Consultant program and the possibility of increasing funding for the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group at last night's meeting.
President Matt Schrimper said Council has set a desirable precedent with the proposal of the CIO Consultant program.
"This is exactly what Student Council should be doing; it's an example of Council fulfilling a very real need for University CIOs," Schrimper said. "This will be a tremendous resource for CIOs for many years to come."
The program was introduced to Council in the form of a resolution that Council will vote on next week. According to a Council press release, the program will benefit CIOs through the consultants' advising capacities and by enabling Council to increase outreach to different areas of the University community.
"This is an easy way to tell groups what our resources are and help them work through Student Council," Vice President for Organizations Kayla Wherry said.
She added that the new program will replace the current Leadership Consultant program, which provides CIOs with opportunities to discuss concerns or questions they have with Council and is ending this year.
"The Leadership Consultant program will be gone next year and we want to fill that void," Wherry said. "We want to outreach to groups. We don't want to wait for people to come to us."
Council also decided last night to allow the allocation of more funds to the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group, a CIO that presented an appropriations appeal to Council. Council ultimately voted to allocate the group funds to cover its pager and telephone expenses, which group representatives argued were essential to the safety of its members.
"I think this was a great example of cooperation between the representative body of Student Council and CIOs," Schrimper said.
According to fourth-year Commerce student Jen Clifton, ?a member of the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group, the organization is an emergency search and rescue resource.
Clifton, along with first-year Law student Sam Leven, presented the appeal to Council and specifically addressed concerns relating to acquiring sufficient funds for pagers and telephone expenses.
"Our primary purpose is to ensure safety of our members," Clifton said. "We're still requesting money for pagers because we need one to go in each car."
Clifton said the organization needs the pagers and funds for out-of-state telephone expenses because there is not always cell phone service available in the mountainous terrain, and the organization needs to be able to keep track of its members when they are on a search.
"Obviously I don't like to go back on appropriations decisions," Wherry said, "But in this case it was for emergency decisions"
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