On Dec. 6, the Student Association met for the last time during the Fall Semester. They wrapped up final topics and also had guests from City Council, ITS, and two proposals for the Green Fund. 

One topic discussed was talk on the new microwave in Murphy Library. The Student Association had been discussing this microwave for a couple of weeks, it was finalized within the last week and the microwave is officially approved and available in Murphy. There was still some talk on the potential of adding an additional microwave for people who can’t eat gluten or are allergic to certain foods. Not only was there ongoing talk about the microwave but there was also talk about the current change to Canvas, a new network for UWL. 

The guest speaker from UWL’s ITS department touched on issues such as the replacement of Desire2Learn and Pay for Print. ITS is looking to add more printers around campus. There currently is a lack of printers in residence halls but they are looking to add more in Centennial and the Student Union. There was discussion about solutions for internet outages. The guest speaker also touched base on how D2L will be switching to Canvas. 

This switch will not impact students who are graduating in May. However, this move will switch all students’ and staff’s classes over to Canvas starting in Fall 2018. Some teachers have already started using canvas. The teachers who aren’t currently using Canvas will be trained, since according to Mohamed Elhindi from ITS, 98% of teachers still use D2L and will need to learn how to use the new software. 

Student Association president Jacob Schimmel has used Canvas before and stated that, “It will be more versatile for students to use, clearer for them to see what assignments are due, clearer for them to have a centralized look at all the things they have due and all the things they have on their schedule instead of having to click around a bunch.” Schimmel was part of the trial committee that used Canvas and provided feedback on it. 

Schimmel contrasted D2L to Canvas stating, “I kinda compare it to Myspace vs Facebook, Facebook rose because Facebook was simple but sleek and Myspace was complicated and clunky.” D2L is an older system and software compared to Canvas, which is much newer. While this advancement is finalized, another discussion regarding the REC has yet to be. 

One matter that the Student Association started talking about was changing the hours of the Recreational Eagle Center on the weekends. These times would only be changed for the weekends. The current hours of the Rec are 10 a.m. to midnight on Sat. and noon to 11 p.m. on Sun. These hours will be changed to 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sundays. The reason for this possible change is to accommodate more students. 

During this meeting the Student Association discussed multiple topics and listened to multiple guests. All topics surrounding how to keep adjusting to the changing university. The Student Association will meet again in Jan.