The Modern Head sculpture on Ohio State’s Columbus Campus. The Undergraduate Student Government unanimously passed two resolutions in its latest meeting Credit: Daniel Bush | Campus Photo Editor
The Undergraduate Student Government passed two resolutions during its latest General Assembly meeting Wednesday advocating for more native plants on campus and implementing a mental health day for students.?
The weekly meeting was held in the Senate Chamber at the Ohio Union.
The first resolution, sponsored by Sen. Lindsay Tayfel, a first-year in architecture, calls on the university to commit to native landscaping practices. Tayfel clarified this would only apply to the university’s landscaping services.
“This does not include any clubs or learning opportunities that involve planting not-so-native species,” Tayfel said.
The College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has a plant database on its website, which shows a map of all trees and plants around the Columbus campus. Tayfel said she found at least five invasive species while using the map.
“I’m not asking us to walk down the street and go, ‘That’s invasive, rip it out,’” Tayfel said. “In the future, let’s be a little more conscious. It would be better for the environment if we stuck to native Ohio plants.”
The second resolution passed supports the implementation of one additional non-instructional mental health day per semester, sponsored by Sen. Adriel Jones, a third-year in nursing.
Jones said she had the idea after talking with one of her friends who goes to North Carolina Central University.
“I’ve noticed that other universities around the country give students one mental health day a semester,” Jones said. “This is just a way to help implement better mental health standards across the university.”?
Jones said a study done by USG shows that students would appreciate the extra day to relax.
Nearly 98 percent of respondents said their mental health would benefit from the break, and nearly 87 percent felt they didn’t “have enough non-structional days built into the semester,” Jones said.
According to the University Registrar’s academic calendar, the autumn semesters include eight days with no classes, while the spring semesters have six with a 10-week gap between Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 19 and Spring Break beginning this year on March 16. This does not include snow days or days where classes are moved to remote instruction.
Jones said that during the height of COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio State did temporarily implement mental health days.
“The world believes that COVID is gone and that mental health is somehow naturally fixed, which is untrue, and why this resolution is very important,” Jones said.
