The Student Government Association is looking to accommodate breast-feeding mothers on campus. 

SGA will vote on a resolution Tuesday night that supports the “creation and maintenance of several private areas for women to express breast milk on campus for students, faculty, and staff.”

Resolution 4-15-S looks to assign specific spaces for mothers to breast-feed. The resolution states this would increase the quality of life for recent mothers. It also notes that Kentucky state law permits women to feed breast-milk in public locations, and it cannot be a bathroom. However, breastfeeding can be embarrassing for many women. 

Seth Church, chief of staff, authored the resolution. He said the issue was brought to him by a non-traditional student who just had her third child. 

Currently, WKU deals with breast-feeding mothers on a case-by-case basis. Church said this isn’t very well advertised and can sometimes be difficult for students to make arrangements. 

“There is no uniform policy on providing students with areas,” Church said. “It is hit-or-miss on how well this works.”

Church said he expects this to pass without debate at the meeting. 

“I don’t expect any opposition, and I like to think that it would be unanimous,” Church said.

Church said there aren’t exact details as to what or where these rooms would be. He said he hopes to have three to four rooms dedicated to the resolution around campus.

“We want to focus them on the top of campus because the bottom is mostly residential,” he said. “This allows for students who are commuters to have places to go.”

Church also wants to work to advertise the spaces once SGA discusses the resolution with administration. He hopes to have the rooms by the end of the semester or the beginning of next year. 

Nicki Taylor, SGA president, said that she supports the resolution. 

“Glad WKU is doing what it is doing now, but I am in support of adding the booths in the future,” she said. “Students don’t know to go to Human Resources, and they could just walk past the booths and know that it is there.”

Taylor said so far SGA is just in the first step of the process, but she expects it to pass.

“It should go through unless anything else happens,” she said. “I expect it to go, but I don’t want to make assumptions.”

Tony Glisson, human resources director, said he has been emailing with Church about the resolution but has not met with him yet. 

“Seth was suggesting we come together with SGA,” he said. “I plan to speak to him later.”

Glisson said there are several ways to make changes. 

“It is certainly a possibility, but there are also other solutions,” he said. “There are a variety of ways to approach it.”