The first Associated Students Senate meeting of the spring semester was short and quiet with only 15 of the 26 Board positions currently filled.

The 11 vacancies come after five students were deemed illegible after not participating in the A.S. Retreat from Jan. 11 to Jan. 13.

One of those students was Lizbeth Mateo who was elected upper division senator during the fall semester elections, but due to a prior commitment to another organization could not attend the retreat. Mateo requested to be excused by A.S. President Adam Haverstock, but her request was not approved.

Mateo attended Tuesday’s meeting and said she is hoping the board will appoint her to the vacant upper division senator position.

General Manager David Crandall said senators needed to pay attention to their studies because they were “loosing students for their GPA.”

While school was out, A.S. attended the monthly California State Student Association meeting hosted at California State University, San Bernardino, Haverstock reported.

Over the weekend of Jan. 19 CSSA voted and approved to oppose Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed 2008-2009 budget, which would cut $312 million from the CSU system. They also voted to oppose the highly discussed MBA fee increase that is expected to be on the Board of Trustees agenda in March.

Haverstock said further research was done that showed only a small percentage of MBA students received tuition compensation from their employers. The main argument by the BOT to increase the fee was that employers were paying tuition for students.

CSSA did vote in support of Tuition Relief Now a student lead organization trying to add a proposition to the November ballot that would freeze tuition for five years and than could not be increased more than the inflation index said Haverstock.

Crandall asked all senators to get the word out about the vacancies on the board and the finance committee. The finance committee is made up of 11 student representatives, one representative from accounting, one university advisor and Crandall. Currently, the only student representative attending the committee meetings is senate representative Andrew Collard.

Crandall said next month $6.5 million dollars will be allocated to student organizations and students are not being represented. Finance committee meetings are on Mondays at 2p.m.