The first Senate Meeting of spring quarter was called to order at 7:13pm. A total of 10 senators were present, while CHASS Senator Alaa Mido, CHASS Senator Ahman Greene, CHASS Senator Andrew Bui, CHASS Senator Huang, CNAS Senator Abby Choy, CNAS Senator Kyle Cheng, CNAS Senator Brenden Cano, and BCOE Senator Chloe Au were excused from the meeting. After approving the meeting minutes from winter quarter, Director of Finance Faraaz Hasta approached the podium during the Public Forum. Hasta encouraged ASUCR to be End Overdose certified, strongly suggesting that the senate participate in opioid prevention training. SPP Senator Sean Nguyen and PPT Aalani Richardson offered their support and connections.
Chief Justice Arias announced that Law Week will be hosted the coming week where there would be resources for pre law programs. A new secretary of the court was hired for Judicial after the previous secretary resigned. Violations for elections have been noticed and Arias encouraged candidates to reread the elections code. The Chief Justice reminded the senate to remain civil and treat each other with kindness and respect. VP of Sustainability Martinez encouraged the senate to participate in Earth Week.
The 2 referendums passed last quarter have not been approved on the university level due to the time of submission. According to Brendan O’Brien, the Assistant Dean of Students and Director, there was not enough time to process the referendums and it required revisions. The referendum was reported to not have enough information for administration to justify the increased student fees. The referendum will have to be submitted again latest at the end of Fall quarter, which would give enough time for the processes to take effect. Sen. Choy entered the meeting at 7:26pm.
The senate held the special elections for the Marketing Promotions position during New Business. There were a total of 11 candidates however, five were not present. Each candidate was allotted 3 minutes to present their case and Senators had another 3 minutes to ask questions.
Kaila’s experience ranged from marketing for a boba shop to organizing for a Youth Congress. Kaila hoped to promote ASUCR values, while giving ASUCR a “classy sleek look.” The candidate prioritized transparency. Kaitlyn, a first year fellow for the marketing office, saw a common issue that made it difficult for ASUCR to gain public traction: students being confused between the events hosted by ASUCR and ASPB. In order to address this issue, Katelyn suggested linking the event to senators and hosting more regular tabling engagements. Katelyn suggested hosting more giveaways and having ECAB members be available to host interviews during tabling events in order to increase tabling engagement. Katelyn has experience in theater marketing, marketing for women’s rights organizations, and marketing for her sorority. Uthinh noticed the lack of attendance in tabling and offered more flexibility in coordination through proper communication and delegation of work. Amanda, a previous Highlander Orientation leader, suggested more consistent tabling events as a way of helping students to get to know their senators. Amanda offered google sheets as a useful tool to keep track of each senator’s availability. Ashley, who has had non-academic marketing experience, also wanted to ensure that senators are fairly contacted and duly informed by organizing a google calendar. David, a previous senator, noted that during tabling engagements, staff were not proactively flyering.
Through more proactive marketing during tabling engagements, David hoped to increase awareness of ASUCR. In order to address issues where senators have not been reliable to table, David prioritized accomplishing tabling engagement by delegating the work to marketing staff to substitute for senators that do not show for tabling engagements. David also suggested creating an open discord channel for students to have more direct access to ASUCR senators. At 8:29 PM, ASUCR held a closed voting session and voted for Ktelyn Nguyen as the new Marketing and Promotions Director.
During Committee Reports Green Grant #28, Green Grant #30, and Green Grant #32 were passed 10-0-0. The Finance Hearing followed soon after.
Motion to open Finance Budget Hearing #1 was approved. Cooper discussed the delegation of funding for student organizations, however it was quickly noted that the hearing minutes did not align with the date. The senate Secretary stated that the hearing minutes that was linked was what was submitted by the VP of Finance Martinez two days ago on April 10. EVP reiterated that what was added on the agenda was what was submitted through email 48 hours in advance. The Hearing minutes #2 was edited over the same document as the Hearing minutes that were submitted on April 10. EVP moved to revert the document to the latest version of the submission date back to April 10 to be approved and the motion passed 10-0-0. The complications with the hearing minutes delayed some funding distribution.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:14 pm.
