The third Associated Students of the University of California, Riverside (ASUCR) Senate meeting of the year began at 7:19 p.m. after failing to meet quorum.
Makai Harris, Vice Chair of UCR’s Chapter of California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) students, announced that in the coming week, they will hold events to educate the campus on issues affecting the planet and ways they can make a change.
Harris explained that waste levels are at a record high, so to mitigate this waste, they are“hosting a clothing swap where students will have the opportunity to learn how to reduce waste as well as reuse and upcycle clothing to mitigate this issue and hopefully come out of this experience with a new article of clothing.”
“In the United States, we generate enough textile waste to fill the Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in our country every six days, and there are a lot of critically important changes that need to take place, both through policy and within the industry itself, to move away from this wasteful model to a more circular one, in which consumer products and the materials that make up our world are built to last, are easy to repair and once they fulfill their original purpose, they are repurposed through reuse, recycling or composting in a sustainable loop,” explained Harris.
Archivist and Executive Assistant, Rishika Salvi, announced that a jean donation drive would be held on April 30 for Denim Day, a day of awareness of sexual violence. She mentioned turning in the jeans on April 23 would be ideal, as they would be painting the jeans later.
In regards to Senator Reports, Senator Mia Tuifa announced that the Wrestling, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai clubs have gone over $10,00 in donations and boosters, as well as three to four professional wrestling mats donated to UCR. They are working to secure the old Aberdeen-Inverness cafeteria as a location for their tournament in the fall.
President Pro Tempore Leila Haidar also mentioned how she was trying to improve Title IX policies as well as UC SHIP premiums: “So this is the collaboration with some Title IX pro staff about what the gaps in those policies are, and turning that into a bill to advocate for on a UC-wide level. I am also for the [Student Health Advisory Council] SHAC. We worked on the proposals for changes to UC SHIP to hopefully reduce premiums, [this way] premiums are still going to go up, but not by as much. And then we had our staff meeting yesterday, and I believe that was just administrative updates for the most part.”
The meeting ended at 7:43 p.m. School of Business Senator Dhruv Patel, School of Public Policy Senator Sofia Jimenez, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) Senators Ryan Choi, Justin Ibay, Carter Anderson and Karen Vo were absent.
Bourns College of Engineering Senator Uma Akundi, CHASS Senator Anahita Hooshyari Far, College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) Senator Anthony Ching and CNAS Senator Mitchell Wei were excused.
