One of newly elected SA president Sophie Spier’s key initiatives was highly debated before ultimately failing in the Senate on Monday at the last meeting of the year.
Spier was looking to get approval for the constitution of the Blue Bridge Project. The Blue Bridge Project is a mental health awareness initiative, and is one of the pillars that Spier and vice president Wesley Siira ran on. It is SDSU’s version of the Green Bandana Project, which was created in 2014 at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls.
The project aims to increase mental health advocacy among students and staff, train individuals to provide mental health resources for those in need and collaborate with existing mental wellbeing entities on campus. Students that wish to complete the training would be able to wear a blue “visual” to signal that they are a safe space for those going through a mental health crisis.
Students looking to be a “safe space” would go through a one hour long QPR training. QPR stands for question, persuasion, refer, according to Spier. The training would aim to teach these students how to refer those in a mental health crisis to the appropriate resources.
Senators expressed support for the idea of the project, but they had concerns about the logistics of mandated reporting within the organization and keeping students that reach out safe. The final vote was 7-3 against, with five senators abstaining.
Senator in the College of Nursing Grace Barnett voted no on the constitution. She voiced concerns on mandated reporting and HIPPA.
“We have amazing trained staff here on campus for a reason,” Barnett said. “They have gone through years and years of education and certification. I just have concerns with students dealing with these kind of complex situations.”
SA adviser Christopher Schmit invited senators to consider the club’s first amendment right to exist.
“I don’t know the answer to this in a legal sense, if there’s a first amendment right for these constitutions also. You can’t vote against a group you don’t agree with, because they have a right to exist … You have legitimate concerns, but I don’t know how that plays a role in voting whether an organization can or can’t exist.”
Schmit added, “This conversation would normally take place if they were asking for money or something like that. Then you guys would have a say in it. We’ve run into this in the past, where students didn’t agree with an organization’s goals, but they’re bound by the first amendment – they have a right to exist. It’s a little confusing.”
Spier said she will continue to work on this project, and she’s still committed to bringing it to SDSU.
“At the end of the day, they [the senators] were just doing what’s best for their constituents and asking questions they felt was necessary … If this program takes a year, I’m gonna stick it out for a year, just because it is something that’s really important to me,” Spier said. “I would really hate to see it die down just because of one mishap.”
In other business:
Keena Melville, director of the Lucas P. Wintrode Autism Support Services, addressed the Students’ Association to give an update of the program. The program was started last year and is sponsored by the Wintrode family.
The program strives to make SDSU more inclusive for students on the autism spectrum. They serve about 32 students on campus and have 11 peer mentors involved in the program, Melville said.
Melville also told senators about common struggles that autistic college students face. For example, students on the autism spectrum have higher dropout rates.
The office offers students one-to-one coaching, peer mentorship, life skills and group workshops. The office is located in Wagner Hall room 229.
“We have 32 students, but I know there are so many more autistic students on campus,” Melville said. “Not every autistic student needs to come to our program, but we want every autistic kid to know that our program is there.”
Five new senators-at-large were sworn in as well. Megan Christoffels, Shishir Roka, Malachi Swift, Supriya Paudel, and Brandon Kampsen will now serve in SA for the upcoming school year. Seven people applied for senator-at-large positions.
Two club constitutions were approved unanimously at the Monday meeting.
The accounting club constitution was one of the two approved. Sophomore accounting major Autumn Iverson said the club aims to bring students interested in accounting together.
“Our mission is to promote academic and professional development for students interested in accounting and finance,” Iverson said. “However, this doesn’t just stem to accounting majors. We’re open to all the majors within the Ness School and anyone else that would like to join us.”
Lecturer in the Ness School Victoria Dubbelde said numbers in the accounting major are higher than what was projected when the major was started.
“When we put our intent to plan together, we put 42 [students] as our two-year projection,” Dubbelde said. “We’re now at 73 in the accounting major already, and it was just started last fall, so we’re seeing some growth in it.”
Also approved was the Matthews Hall government club constitution.
Jonathan Hueftle is the Residence Hall Director for Mathews, as well as the adviser for the Mathews Hall Club. He said that hall government has been in the process of turning all hall governments into more officially recognized organizations on campus.
“That way, we can better connect with all of our other organizations, as well as have different opportunities that were previously unavailable to us,” Hueftle said.
SA meetings will resume in the 2025-2026 school year.
