The Associated Students 76th Senate proposed several new projects to increase student resources at its Sept. 10 meeting. President Le Anh Metzger presented her plan to restructure the Senate reporting structure for increased efficiency.
A.S. President Le Anh Metzger is in conversation with Chancellor Dennis Assanis and plans to restructure the BCU reporting structure. Nexus file photo
The meeting began with public comment from GauchoCatholic treasurer and third-year applied mathematics major, Makayla Barkhousen, who requested $12,736 for their two-day retreat to build community relations and learn about the Catholic faith.
Additionally, third-year political science and philosophy double major Josie Penix and second-year mechanical engineering and physics double major Eddie Barajas requested $10,000 for Coastal Conversations’ first event, hosting Salud Carbajal, congressman for the 24th congressional district of California. Coastal Conversations is a new campus organization that aims to provide a free speaker series to students. Later in the meeting, the Senate passed the allocation of up to $10,000 to Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity for the sponsorship of the event, as Coastal Conversations is still being established as a Registered Campus Organization (RCO).
Senator and second-year biology and political science double major Eemaan Wahidullah proposed a bill to establish the first-gen and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) peer mentor advocacy program, in which student mentors would help first-generation and BIPOC students find campus resources.
“Though there are many resources and opportunities for students to use, unfortunately, there’s a lot of necessity for accommodations for first-generation students, as well as people of color and BIPOC communities, to have someone as a mentor there to guide them to find these existing resources,” Wahidullah said.
The Senate referred the bill to the liaison committee with a recommendation to reconsider it as a resolution, allowing the program to begin as a pilot program before becoming legislation.
The Senate then retroactively approved Trans & Queer Commission’s (TQC) internal election, which was originally held out of the designated Boards, Committees and Units (BCU) election period based on the recently passed bill to update BCU election code.
During executive reports, Attorney General and fourth-year economics and communication double major Taylor Iden proxied for Metzger, a third-year global studies, communication and Spanish triple major. Iden reported that she is in conversation with UC Santa Barbara’s new chancellor, Dennis Assanis, and plans to restructure the BCU reporting structure.
As a former BCU chair, Metzger believes the current system of BCU chair quarterly reports to be “inefficient,” as chairs have had to wait for up to three hours to give their report. Metzger reports this had led to an increase in chairs submitting written reports that “nobody really read.” Metzger plans to change this system by having a separate quarterly meeting where all BCUs send one representative to provide a unit report to the Senate.
Senator and third-year political science major Sohan Sunderrajan reported the advocacy committee’s plans to set up 40 cabinets throughout campus that would contain Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses.
The Senate then approved all resignations and appointments except for Salome Achury and second-year data science and biopsychology double-major Stanton Nowinski, as their nominations to the Judicial Council (JC) were discussed in a closed session.
As a two-thirds vote of approval from the entire Senate is needed to pass JC appointments, the Senate held an email vote Sept. 13-14 which confirmed the appointments of Achury and Nowinski as JC members.
