It was less a case of who was present and more a case of who was absent from Wednesday’s meeting of the Missouri Southern Student Senate.

University President Julio León was scheduled to answer questions from senators, but a scheduling conflict prevented his attendance. Senate President John Carr said he met with León’s secretary and scheduled the meeting knowing there was an unconfirmed meeting already set for Wednesday. There was a chance the meeting would fall through or that the two meetings would not compete with each other for León’s time.

The meeting was going to be León’s annual meeting with the Senate when the senators are allowed to ask him questions about what is going on at Southern, so no official business would have been addressed.

“It’s not something that we had to have this week or next week, so it’s not a big deal,” Carr said. “It was just going to be a Q and A session, and he’ll come to one of the meetings after Thanksgiving, anyways.

Unless of course there is another scheduling conflict in which case then he’ll just come to a meeting at the first of January.”

But one question Carr is eager to ask León is still on the Senate president’s mind.

“I’d like to see a follow-up on the smoking project,” he said. “We did our part as a Student Senate.

“But even today I walked by at least a half a dozen students smoking within six feet of the no smoking sign. That’s just ridiculous. I think something needs to be done about that.”

Carr is willing to offer alternatives. He doesn’t just want a complete ban on all smoking on campus.

“We have talked a lot about making a smoking-only entrance for each building,” Carr said. “We’ve looked into what other campuses are doing and that seems to be the trend.”

Student Senate’s next meeting will be Wednesday, Nov. 29.