The Student Senate Wednesday passed a resolution recommending that the fall 2002 commencement be held on Dec. 14 rather than the scheduled Dec. 21 date.

“Its just a better deal for the students,” Jessica Catto, student vice president for academic affairs, said.

The Council on Academic Affairs and the Faculty Senate have both passed motions recommending commencement remain scheduled for Dec. 21. The reasoning for that recommendation because of the precedent it would set.

Student Body President Hugh O’Hara said a meeting of all organizations will take place some time in the next week to further discuss the issue.

Final say on the issue is in the hands of interim President Lou Hencken.

During the audience participation portion of the meeting, Ken Bauer,a student who was employed to move books back into Booth Library, made a presentation to senate outlining a situation between workers and the university.

Bauer said he would also be addressing the Faculty Senate and the Board of Trustees and the issue may end up in court on the grounds that the university lied about the completion of the library and about the status of the workers’ jobs.

“They spread false information for their own gain,” Bauer said.

He said he had been in contact with a few Downstate law firms that all said there may be a case regarding third party liability.

Among other committee member approvals, senate member Bill Davidson, University Development and Recycling Committee chair, was approved as this semester’s City Council Liaison.

Last semester’s liaison selection became a difficult process as two candidates for the liaison position were voted down because the senate felt neither had enough experience to deal with issues facing the City Council.

In other business, the senate approved a bill to allocate $200 from the senate budget to advertise Campus Life Night, which will take place Tuesday.

The senate also discussed two bylaw changes which were tabled until next week.

One bylaw change takes one duty out of the duties of the Speaker of the Senate dealing with senate staff, since senate staff no longer exists.

The other bylaw change deals with Recognized Student Organization representation, and yielded much discussion.

The current system, which went into effect last fall, created an RSO Council for organizations to attend and find out about what’s going on in Student Senate and RSO tables in various locations on campus for the same purpose.

This bylaw change calls for going back to the old system where senate members signed up to go to an RSO meeting and inform the group of what was going on.

While members agreed the current system needs to be changed, they disagreed on going back to the old system. The bylaw change was tabled, and in the meantime work will be done on revising the system.