The Urbana-Champaign Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Monday to eliminate Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day, said Mark Roszkowski, Business faculty senator and author of the resolution.

The resolution entitles the University to take action to prevent the occurrence of future Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day festivities. It also allows Chancellor Richard Herman to establish a commission of students, faculty and staff to make recommendations about how to eliminate academic disturbances and promote campus safety.

“(Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day) gives a black eye to the University,” Roszkowski said. “It seriously undermines the integrity of this University. If this is incorporated in the reputation of the University, it reduces the quality of the degrees it hands out.”

Paul McNamara, ACES faculty senator, said the repercussions of the holiday this year made the resolution necessary.

“I think we need to make sure we don’t get a reputation for being a partying town,” McNamara said. “The University needs to take a stand.”

Roszkowski said he believed the University was right to take an official stand on the issue for the safety of students, but that not all students would see it in their best interests.

“The feeling is that this resolution is anti-student,” Roszkowski said. “However, it’s not. In fact, it is pro-education.”

Amanda Palazzo, ACES student senator and junior in the college, disagreed and said the resolution will infringe on the rights of students.

She said the University is taking a paternalistic approach to the situation, and that they should attempt to educate and protect, instead of trying to prevent students from participating in the day’s events.

“Most students don’t want their classrooms to become a circus,” Palazzo said. “The University should focus on what happens in the classrooms instead of trying to abolish the whole thing. They shouldn’t try to control what goes in my apartment.”

Josh Rohrscheib, co-president of Illinois Student Senate and graduate student, said he also believes that the University is abusing students’ rights in an effort to end the student celebration.

“The Dean of Students, in punishing Irish Illini for having bar crawls – which is something that almost every organization does – is just targeting one group that they think has a part in (Unofficial),” Rohrscheib said.

Both sides agreed that the focus of the commission to be appointed by Chancellor Herman should be in regulating student’s actions while in the classroom.

“I’m not interested in controlling student partying,” Roszkowski said. “I just want to make sure the University is operating the way it is supposed to be operating.”

Palazzo added, “if you want to participate in these activities, just don’t come to our classrooms.”