Timely Warnings and Time Grid Systems: SGA Senate Spotlight 4/6/22

A recap of last week’s Student Senate meeting, including a presentation from Diana Sweeney, BUPD Assistant Chief of Police, regarding Timely Warnings and a presentation from Dr. Travis Ryan, Associate Provost, concerning the proposed New Time Grid System.

Grace Reynolds | greynolds@butler.edu 

Last Wednesday, April 6th, the Student Senate gathered for their weekly meeting regarding all of the current activity occurring on Butler’s campus. After approving last week’s minutes, Diana Sweeney led with a Q&A about BUPD - specifically regarding timely warnings.

In her presentation, Sweeney explained that timely warnings are issued when crime has occurred that is a continuing threat, compared to other alerts like Dawg Alerts and Public Service Announcements. Dawg Alerts are emergency notifications about impending issues that seem to be an immediate threat on Butler’s campus. These would be for events like fires, robberies and tornados. Public Service Announcements are for cases reported that are not crimes. 

Officer Sweeney continued on to explain the sanction given to the recent incident that occurred on campus. She defined trespassing as a case by case basis that can be declared when someone who is not affiliated with the university breaks university policies. Butler is a private institution so they have complete jurisdiction to declare what they deem as trespassing.

The final topic that Officer Sweeney addressed concerned the Daily Crime log. BUPD receives between 700 to 900 reports a year, around 200 of those being criminal cases. The crime log only includes cases that occurred on Butler’s campus and anything that occurred in the surrounding area is not posted. When a crime is reported, it must be put into the system within two days and, if there are any changes to the report within 60 days, it must be updated in the crime log. The crime log is posted daily on Butler’s website and is available to the public.

The second presentation was by Dr. Travis Ryan, the Associate Provost, who explained Butler University’s proposed plan for a new time grid system for classes to give students more flexibility when they are traveling a greater distance between classes. Other solutions to help this time conflict included a campus shuttle and a bike share system, but it was decided that creating longer passing periods might be the best fit. 

The current grid system has both three credit classes that meet for 50 minutes three times a week and three credit classes that meet for 75 minutes twice a week. It was found that 75 minute classes tend to be more popular among the student body, so the new grid system proposes that there are six time slots a day where 75 minute classes can take place and these classes will meet on either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday. 50 minute classes will then be inserted within each 75 minute time slot and each passing period will be at least 15 minutes long. 

Butler is currently consulting stakeholders in every college and hopes to receive feedback from the student body, as well. This schedule would be hopefully implemented in the fall of 2023. If you have any feedback or concerns regarding this new concept, please feel free to reach out to Dr. Ryan at tryan@butler.edu.

After the presentations, a resolution was presented to add three additional picnic tables to the pathway between Atherton Union and Jordan Hall. This was passed with a unanimous vote. In regards to old business, the grant to fund the Muslim Student Association from last week’s meeting was also passed unanimously.

The Senate then agreed to suspend the 48 hour rule to vote on a resolution to thank Maya Sanchez for her work on the executive branch as director of DESB. Maya did many things to progress DEI on Butler’s campus, from hosting events and creating relationships to dedicating her time and energy to the cause. After resigning recently, many believed it was necessary to acknowledge everything that she did. With a majority vote, the resolution passed.

To conclude their meeting, senators gave some announcements about upcoming events. Some of these include the Student Awards Banquet, set to take place on April 18th at 5:30pm, Delta Tau Delta’s Philanthropy week for the Reilly Children’s Hospital occurring throughout the coming week and an upcoming outreach event with Dr. Frank Ross.

With the year coming to a close, there are not any more Senate meetings this semester, however more information such as contact information for the Senate can be found on the SGA website.

All students are welcome to attend Senate meetings. These take place in the Reilly Room on Wednesdays at 7 p.m..