UA unanimously passes 'don't look at my junk resolution'

On Sunday afternoon, the Undergraduate Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to urge the Penn Department of Recreation to renovate the men’s locker room at Pottruck Health and Fitness Center.

The resolution — authored by Wharton and Engineering junior Tyler Ernst, the Student Life director, and Wharton sophomore and UA member Michael Pierce — called on Penn Rec to build individual shower stalls in the men’s locker room in place of the current group showering space.

Although all the women’s showers are individually partitioned, the men’s shower facility is primarily a group showering space apart from two partitioned showers which were installed a few years ago to improve the privacy and safety of transgender individuals.

The “Pottruck Privacy and Gender Equality Resolution” points out that “the inherent gender bias in the setup is alone cause for concern: the implicit assumption that women need privacy in such settings, whereas men are comfortable in the buff is and always has been outdated.”

“Regardless of gender, undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff at the University of Pennsylvania have expressed discomfort at the public nature of the showers,” according to the resolution.

Ernst said that “no one [in Penn Rec] is opposed to [the renovations] on principle.”

“If so, they’d be in violation of many [University non-discrimination] policies,” he added.

Although Penn Rec, the LGBT Center and members of the Penn community support this renovation, the $15,000 price-tag is a significant issue.

“It all comes down to cost. Of course,” Ernst said.

“If money could be allotted to [Penn Rec], renovations would occur over the summer,” he added.

The resolution points out, however, that the cost of this project “must be put in perspective of Penn’s Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics, which has an operating budget of $48.1 million” and should be made a priority.

The “don’t look at my junk resolution” as characterized by College junior and UA Secretary Cynthia Ip, passed with ease, and UA members are hopeful about what will come.

The UA also unanimously passed an amendment to the UA bylaws to establish the “Conflicts of Interest and Commercial Endorsement Policy.” The amendment — proposed by the UA executive board — adds a much-needed policy to regulate commercial endorsement.

“Previously, we did not have such policy at all so people could vote even if, say, they had a commercial interest which caused a lot of trouble,” Ip wrote in an e-mail.

Now, the UA and its members “can pursue projects with commercial interest as long as we follow the rules which protect our constituents as well as the organization,” Ip said.

The UA also approved sending a letter to the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation which will endorse the Penn Medical Emergency Response Team for the Collegiate EMS Organization of the Year award.

Representatives from MERT attended the meeting and thanked the UA for their past and continued support.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.