The Student Association Senate endorsed GW’s decision to make standardized test scores optional for applicants during the group’s first meeting of the year Monday night.

Sen. Thomas Falcigno, CCAS-U, who sponsored the resolution, said Laurie Koehler, the senior associate provost for enrollment management, explained the administration’s decision to members of the SA during the group’s retreat over the past weekend.

Falcigno said Koehler told the group that the change was made with “neither selectivity or prestige in mind,” and added that he decided to sponsor the bill because the University becoming “test–optional” creates a “more holistic admission process and therefore a more holistic GW.”

He called the new policy a step in the right direction, but added that “test-optional undergraduate admissions is only a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches and that “there are still gaping holes in our system that lead to disproportionate wealth disparity among GW students.”

Falcigno cited the three-year on-campus housing requirement, the cost of tuition and the University’s need-aware admissions as policies that “need to be reexamined if we are truly going to say that we are attempting to improve diversity and promote opportunity.”

The senate also approved more than $6,000 in funding for the Latino Heritage Celebration to bring Lucy Flores, an assemblywoman in Nevada, to be the keynote speaker for the month-long series of events. The celebration is organized by the Organization of Latino American Students.

Both SA President Andie Dowd and SA Executive Vice President Casey Syron asked that students keep junior Nicholas Upton, who has been missing in South Africa since Sunday night, and his family in their thoughts and prayers.