Student Government: OERs, Otto Rec Center
The Minnesota State University, Mankato Student Government held their weekly meeting in the Ostrander Auditorium Wednesday, Nov. 11. After roll call, they called up presentations.
The first to present was from the Director of System Relations from Students United, Devin Smith. Here, he talked about the Open Educational Resources at MNSU.
Open Educational Resources, or OERs, are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free to use by anyone and can be reused by a student or teacher with whatever they might need.
These resources were made because of the concerns of rising prices of higher education and textbooks. MNSU is currently working on providing OERs for all students to utilize.
A new program at many two-year Minnesota State schools, such as Anoka-Ramsey Community College, is the Z-degree. The Z-degree is a zero textbook cost associate’s degree.
This program is being tested out within the Minnesota State programs in hopes of implementing them into the 4-year universities. If interested in learning more about OER’s you should familiarize yourself with OER’s and learn about student experiences with their OER, and as your professors about potentially utilizing the Open Educational Resources at MNSU.
The next presentation was given by Kristi Bakalyer on the Campus Computer Store, where she talked about the new website for the computer store.
This website was launched last week and can adapt to the changing needs of students. To do so, the website has a showcasing of different products on the home screen that is easy to interchange based on the certain circumstance.
To help students, the store has added additional products including anti-bacterial spray for technology and wireless charging pads. Lastly, with the help of IT Solutions they were able to create a sponsorship between the eSports team and Dell.
To keep up-to-date on technology and store information, there is a newsletter on the website, as well as a new ‘Meet the Team’ page.
After presentations, the meeting moved to an open forum. In this forum, members discussed the new mask requirement in the Otto Recreation Center on campus.
While people are working out, they will now be required to wear a mask at all times, including during physical exertion. This rule change will start Friday, Nov. 13.
With this new rule the center will be allowing 3 vs. 3 basketball and 6 vs. 6 volleyball.
To finish up, Senators Gabbert, Wheeler, Mendonca, and Elsaadi all gave their reports.
In these reports they talked about integrating film students into the video production team on campus by posting jobs for them, adding new recycling complexes at the Highland Hills Apartments, providing more project-based learning in the College of Business, Zoom etiquette, and increasing awareness about the Social and Behavioral Studies program.
Lastly, an announcement about a senator position for the College of Allied Health and Nursing being open was made. If interested, you can check out the Student Government Engage page to apply.
The next Student Government meeting will be held Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. in the Ostrander Auditorium.