The ASSU Undergraduate Senate convened last night to discuss the transition from this year’s Senators to next year’s incoming members. The Senate also discussed publications policy and approved an amendment to the Student Judicial Charter.

The Board of Judicial Affairs proposed a change that would clarify the procedures for a student accused of a Fundamental Standard violation. Currently, a student can be accused of both a Fundamental Standard violation and of breaking a specific Student Conduct policy for the same incident.

The proposed amendment would alter the procedure and would “require all charges relating to a single alleged case of misconduct to be heard in a single proceeding.” If the panel found the student guilty of violating both a specific Student Conduct policy and the Fundamental Standard, it would levy only one punishment upon the accused party.

While the amendment passed unanimously in the Senate, it could still be vetoed by University President John Hennessy, the Graduate Student Council or the Faculty Senate.

After voting on the change, the Senate heard from ASSU Publications Director Brendan Marten, who is also the chief operating officer for The Daily. Marten described a proposal for distributing student publications in dining halls.

“Basically the idea is to get [publications] out into the dining halls within a month or two,” he said. “It’s going to be a good thing. It’ll give a lot of publications on campus that don’t have regular drop points a chance to have a slot, a space for their publications across campus.”

Marten also described how the process would work.

“In terms of how the space will be distributed, it will probably be some variation of a first-come, first-serve scheme or certain publications that fit certain criteria will get a permanent slot,” he said. “Other publications that publish less frequently will operate on a rotating schedule.”

The Senate finished its meeting by discussing the transition between the outgoing senators and the senators-elect for the academic year 2006-2007, many of whom were present at the meeting.

Sophomore Andrew Barragan, an outgoing senator, proposed handing over full voting rights to the new Senators right after the election results are certified at the Senate’s next meeting, scheduled for May 2. He argued that this would give the new senators some experience before next year.

However, Senate Chair Chris Nguyen, a junior, said that Barragan’s proposal would be unconstitutional, since the Senate-elect must meet as a group at least once before they can claim voting rights.

Nguyen also expressed concern that if outgoing senators lost their voting rights, they would “check out” and be unavailable to assist in the transition process.

The Senate closed the meeting by deciding that next year’s senators would assume their positions on May 16.