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SGA: Senate hopes to change honors graduation requirements

The Student Government Association unanimously passed a resolution Thursday in support of revising the requirements for awarding honors at graduation.

The resolution supports the proposal brought forth by students and faculty of the College of Technology to reduce the hours used to calculate honors to half of the degree plan.

‘I was at the town hall (Tuesday), and I was immediately won over by these people,’ CLASS Sen. Taylor Kilroy, who authored the resolution, said.

The College of Technology petition, written by organizational leadership and supervision senior Joshua Bush, addresses the fact that some transfer students are being denied the ability to graduate with honors.

Under current UH policy, 66 hours of residency are required to graduate with honors in a 120-hour degree plan.

Transfer students are allowed a maximum of 66 credit hours to be applied toward an undergraduate degree. Therefore, for a transfer student to graduate with academic honors, he or she is forced to obtain a total of 132 hours.

Alumnus Timothy Clark, also a supporter of the petition, said he was impressed with the SGA and the speed with which they passed the resolution.

‘We are grateful and amazed (at) how fast the SGA came about it and are pushing forward,’ Clark said. ‘They should be commended. They chose to take a stand for the student body.’

Kilroy also announced to the Senate that the Internal Affairs Committee, which he is the chair of, is working on fixing the election code.

The election code as it stands now has too many loopholes and is too vague, Kilroy said.

‘If the past election taught us anything about this election code, (it) is that it is almost as bad as not having (one),’ Kilroy said. ‘The amount of drama and hostility that arose because of the election code because of the vagueness and sheer stuff that wasn’t written in (it) is ridiculous.’

The senate also unanimously appointed Graduate Sen. Keith Richards to the Administration and Finance Committee and Natural Science and Mathematics Sen. John Flynt to the Student Life Committee. The senate also announced the promotion of At-large Sen. Sean Tarver from vice chair of the University administration and finance committee to chair.

The next SGA meeting will be 7:30 p.m. in the Mediterranean room Oct. 28.

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