Two AS senators increased the requested allocations for club-sponsored programs due to the benefits it provides for students.
AS requested to allocate $5,400 from Student Travel and Academic Research funding to allow 10 students to attend the Association of Asian American Studies Conference this April. Senator Brianna Wilcox requested to increase the funding by an additional $2,400 for a total of $7,800. According to AS the travel cost per student is $540, whereas the original cost was set at $5,400.
“If it’s for educational purposes I don’t see why we can’t add an extra $2,400,” Wilcox said.
AS senators did not approve Wilcox’s recommendation of $7,800. Allocation was lowered to $6,000.
AS Attorney General Adan Garay said senators are showing passion and support for their constituents by making motions on their behalf and increasing their financial recommendations. The senator’s personal experiences and beliefs help determine their vote behind certain issues.
The benefits of holding these events outweigh their costs, Garay said.
When discussing SB 2011-12-03, the “Resolution Instituting the Tradition of the Rose,” Senator Orion Block made a motion to strike down resolution 6A “flowering plants are replaced or added to the campus, that they be Matador Red roses”, in hopes of persevering water during the drought.
As AS was voting on Successful Transfer, Senator Dikran Khodanian said having a program that helps successfully transitions transfer students into CSUN comfortably will greatly benefit the students and how he wished he could of been part of this program when he transferred to CSUN.
Successful Transfer, said Khodanian, is a program that helps student get familiar with CSUN programs, important locations such as the Klotz center, the Oviatt and SRC and campus events; it is much like freshman orientation.
AS also passed a motion to allocate $3,945 to Project D.A.T.E to help fund their week long sexual assault awareness and prevention program event known as Sexual Assault Awareness for Everyone.
Originally, project D.A.T.E had requested $2,500, but senators recommended to increase that amount by adding an additional $1,445. The funding will be split up as followed: $1,972 will be allocated from Unassigned Contingency and another $1,972 will be from The University Corporation (TUC).
When funding a club or organization, the AS finance committee looks at the club’s previous funds allocated with AS to determine how they used the funds or if they used all the money for the purpose they requested it for. The main issue debated when discussing increasing their funds was if AS can fund certain items.
Through Unassigned Contingency, AS will not fund for events off campus, food, class group projects, DJs, T-shirts and marketing.
The newly appointed Assistant Chair of Finance, Zoya Zehra, stated that Project D.A.T.E should use their assets from CSUN to receive free to little-to-no-cost for printing marketing materials. Zehra noted that a large amount of the funding is going toward paying interpreters to communicate with the students, mainly the deaf.
“The main thing is to look at the previous year to see how they spent their money,” Zehra said.
After much debate between senators, they voted on bringing the total funding price back down to the original price of $2,500. The major factor into their decision was the limit AS has for funding their marketing.
March 23rd Meeting Highlights:
Appointed Tom Conaway a senior majoring in Computer Science to become the Senator for the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Appointed to approve Zoya Zehra as Assistant Chair of Finance.
Approved SB 2014-15-006 which is known as “Successful Transfer”. The bill was then renamed to “Improving orientation process for transfer students”
Allocated $1,500 to African American Music Association for Music and Entertainment Summit.
Allocated $800 from Unassigned Contingency to Delta Sigma Pi for the event “DSP Presents”. Their original asking price was $5,000.
