Plans for the upcoming Associated Student Election, California Faculty Assiciation negotiation talks and possible public transportation improvements were a few of the items discussed during the Associated Students Senate meeting.

Elections

Associated Students awareness month, a series of events are being held to help promote, inform and spread awareness of the AS and their upcoming elections, has begun this week.

This includes an Elections Kick-Off, on Feb. 24 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Matador Walk. The event aims to provide information to students interested in running for A.S. office and free donuts for those who sign up.

“We want to reach out to students to run for positions and learn more about the elections process so we can inspire them to sign up,” Jorge Reyes, A.S. President said.

A.S. will be involved in a “50 Clubs in 50 Days” campaign, where members promote and explain what exactly they can do for clubs. The campaign will take a similar angle to the previous semesters event “100 Days a 100 Classrooms,” where members of A.S. went into 100 classrooms to promote their work.

“This is to inform clubs what AS can do for clubs specifically, like funding, advertisement, programs and such,” said Valerie Leal, AS Chief of Staff.

CFA Negotiations

Discussion then ensued regarding the potential CFA strike April 13-15 and April 18-19 stemming from the CFA/CSU negotiations. Currently the CFA and CSU are awaiting the results of the fact-finding process.

Questions from the senate were then taken to be asked of CFA Northridge Chapter President, Nate Thomas, to help develop their stance.

“I think our board has been very active when it comes to CSU issues. So after this upcoming meeting I’m hoping we can develop a stance we want to take and potentially be more involved with our faculty,” Reyes said.

Transportation

Then an upcoming Valley Transportation Summit was announced. The CSUN and the Valley’s transportation priorities will be discussed on March 3 at 6 p.m. in the Grand Salon.

CSUN was selected to be the host of the second summit as a result of all the student commuters.

“CSUN and Metro met last week to discuss Metro issues when it comes to student’s accessibility,” Reyes said. “So now Senator Hertzberg is working with Metro to get more funding for more busses around the area.”

Other Meeting Details

The recent “Divest Turkey” campaign was also noted.

Currently, a “Divest Turkey” campaign has begun spreading throughout UC campuses to withhold bonds and investments in the Republic of Turkey for its denial and involvement of the Armenian Genocide. As a result, possible recommendations on courses of action for CSUN regarding the divestment item in Turkey were discussed.

“We didn’t want whatever course of action we took to just last a year or so. We wanted something that would say within the foundation once our time in AS is over,”
Sevag Alexanian, A.S. Vice President said. “What that calls for is a policy change within the foundation investment policies.”

The potential policy change would use broader language to include a wide variety of countries that don’t respect human rights or deny the acceptance of genocide, rather than just specifically targeting a single country. This would eliminate a precedence and allow student groups to feel comfortable addressing a controversial item.