- ASSU Financial Manager Frederik Groce ’14 reported that there has been an increase in the number of students requesting waivers to opt-out of student activities fees, with 8.4 percent of undergraduates opting out compared to the 6.2 percent who opted out last year. Groce attributed this increase to the growing awareness of this option on campus.
(VICTOR XU/The Stanford Daily)
- Advocacy Committee Chair Rachel Samuels ’17 announced several initiatives that her committee has been working on this quarter. These initiatives included creating a survey about keeping dining halls open during Spring Break and establishing a student space for First-Generation, Low-Income Partnership (FLIP).
- The majority of the Senate meeting was devoted to discussing the UGS-A2014-11 Bill to Assign Reserve Accounts to Student Groups, which would appropriate $150,000 from special fee reserves to fund general fees groups. General fees groups can request up to $6,000 per year (or $7,000 per year if the group is community-service oriented) from the ASSU senate. Special fees groups are groups whose budget exceeds $6,000 per year – with the exception of service groups requesting up to $7,000 from the ASSU – and apply for funding via vote of the student body. The bill was authored by Senate Treasurer Eric Theis ’16 and co-sponsored by Parliamentarian John-Lancaster Finley ’16. “For a lot of people this sounds like something that the ASSU tried to do a couple of months ago,” Finley said, referring to the SAFE Reform bill that failed to pass last year. “We are at a point right now in this fiscal year where either we do this or seriously cut the budget.” The bill allows the Financial Manager to take an equal percentage from all special fees reserve accounts and pool them into a reserve. The Senate could then allocate the funds to general fees student groups. Groce expressed his disapproval of the bill, calling it a “band-aid” and “unconstitutional.” Discussion about this bill will continue at the next Senate meeting on Tuesday.
The Senate is set to propose new guidelines for the buffer fund by the end of the year.
(RAGHAV MEHROTRA/The Stanford Daily)
- The Resolution on General Fees Funding for Housed and Greek Organizations was discussed last night, continuing the debate about the ASSU approach to funding Greek and housed events.The resolution states, “The 16th Undergraduate Senate will not fund Greek or Housed organizations with the following exceptions: Philanthropy events, which will be funded on a case by case basis considering both the amount of money expected to be raised and the number of students attending the event and community service events involving direct participation by organization members.” This resolution was, too, met with disapproval by Greek-affiliated students in attendance who implored the Senate to meet with Greek organizations, including the African-American Fraternal and Sororal Association and Multicultural Greek Council, to better understand the financial situation.