The Associated Students 75th Senate passed updates to senate standing rules and honoraria reforms at its Nov. 6 meeting for increased internal efficiency, according to senators. They also discussed senate publicity initiatives and received a report from the Internal Vice President and Executive Director.
The meeting was called into session with Internal Vice President (IVP) and fourth-year art major Açucar Pinto acting as chair for only the second time this quarter. This comes after members of senate leadership presented a report at the Oct. 30 meeting proposing restructuring the Senate so that pro-tempores largely act as chairs instead of the IVP. Pinto confirmed their involvement in writing the report, however they said they would remain chair of the senate in a comment to the Nexus.
The Senate passed amendments to their standing rules which will require all motions involving the movement of funds or the passage of any legislation to have a recorded vote to pass. The Senate also passed a bill to reform honoraria, or payment for members of the association, which will enact an outstanding Boards, Committees and Units (BCU) award and begin an honoraria amount review process. This is an attempt to hold members of the association accountable and reward those who go above and beyond.
“Over time, the honoraria has evolved into an in-kind compensation that nearly guarantees the full amount to all members, barring significant errors. While this approach is positive, recognizing the substantial effort contributed by members, it lacks a mechanism for acknowledging individuals who exceed expectations,” the bill read.
Executive Director Marisela Márquez delivered a report alongside Senate Media Coordinator and third-year English major Oseinou Diagne about expanding senate outreach efforts through social media. Diagne said his goal this year is to encourage students to engage with Associated Students (A.S.) and expand the Senate Instagram, which has no posts from this academic year.
“I plan to provide a channel of communication, relationships and overall support to the student body using your guys’ work. And my main objective is to get your faces out there and your goals of helping the community into the UCSB media sphere,” Diagne said.
Pinto delivered their executive report, in which they briefly went through projects their office has been working or advising on. One such project is the Gaucho Food Inclusion Program — which aims to support international, undocumented and off-campus students who cannot access nutritious and affordable food. Others include improving accessibility of the MultiCultural Center for students with disabilities and approving retroactive honoraria.
In addition, Pinto added Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic holidays to the IVP calendar. This comes after the first Senate meeting of the quarter on Oct. 2 was boycotted by several senators due to claims that the IVP and members of University administration failed to reschedule the meeting after requests, due to a clash with the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. They’re also working to revise A.S. financial policies, address general BCU concerns about the association and set up an anonymous internal grievances form.
Pinto is in the process of revising their ethical spending bill, which prohibits the association’s allotted budget of student fees from being used to purchase from companies on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) list. The bill was put on pause in September due to legal concerns regarding using student fees in a non-neutral way.
The BDS movement is a nationwide movement “to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law,” according to their website.
“Right now, we’ve kind of been in conversation about centering the bill around not supporting corporations as a whole that have human rights violations, as well as unfair labor practices. We have been noticing a lot of overlap in that. It’s definitely with an emphasis on how to support local and small businesses,” Pinto said.
Furthermore, Pinto is assisting with the Senate’s strategic vision plan and supporting Black students by collaborating with the Black Women’s Health Collaborative on a Black hair care vending machine and the Black Empowerment Task Force.
“We have some really great missions, and I’ve been reviewing all of that with the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs office. We’ve been reaching out to the [Diversity, Equity & Inclusion] office, reaching out to past Black alumni, and that entire process has been giving us a really well-rounded version of history at UCSB,” Pinto said.
The Senate entered a closed session toward the end of the meeting to discuss a “legal matter,” inviting senators, the IVP, Márquez the Assistant Director for Governmental Affairs, the Director of Student Engagement & Business Services, A.S. Parliamentarian and the Attorney General to the discussion. Márquez was unable to provide further information regarding the topic of the closed session.
A version of this article appeared on p. 3 of the Nov. 14, 2024 edition of the Daily Nexus.
