At the first A.S. council meeting of Spring Quarter, councilmembers had little to talk about, yet managed to drag out their discussion and debate for over four hours.
Warren Senator Alyssa Wing announced the lineup for next Friday’s Warren Live concert – Delta Spirit, Junior Boys and Pop Noir.
Chancellor Marye Anne Fox arrived to present key points from last week’s UC Board of Regents meeting at UC San Francisco.
Fox updated councilmembers on the administration’s intent to define common goals and actions to improve the campus climate by enhancing diversity with admissions and retention.
Future plans include expanding opportunities for students to participate in cross-cultural events, identifying appropriate areas of campus for art displays representative of minority communities and creating resource centers for African American students.
Associate Vice President of Concerts & Events Alex Bramwell discussed how his department books artists for the Sun God Festival each year.
This year, the coveted festival wristbands will be distributed on both the Thursday before and the Friday of the festival. More details and the official line-up in its full glory will be revealed Monday, April 5 on the festival Web site.
Revelle Senator Arvind Satyanarayan brought his senator project – a glossy banner with facts about Revelle – to the council meeting.
The biggest talk of the night came when VP of Finance and Resources Peter Benesch gave an update on the state of the A.S. budget.
Recently, the funding originally allocated for media organizations was spent. With new student media outlet — such as No. 15 Magazine — councilmembers debated over whether the money would come from Mandate Reserves, which is money typically saved for traditional or long-term larger events or from money set aside for regular student organization programming.
“It isn’t about punishing new or old orgs, we’ve already overallocated our whole budget by $100,000, which is OK, but we established our priorities in the beginning of the year and we should stick to that,” Benesch said.
After a good hour of debate, $8,693.48 was allocated for No. 15 magazine from media orgs unallocated.
Members from the freshman council came to present their accomplishments from the last two quarters, and said an emotional goodbye.
Items from the finance committee and the campus affairs committee passed through council quickly and painlessly.
AVP Enterprise Operations Rishi Ghosh proposed a resolution urging the listing of non-bookstore class materials on Tritonlink and other campus systems as a way to improve the academic experience for students.
Talk later returned to the Mandate Reserve money during new business. Campuswide Senator Carli Thomas, said, “We’ve had a strong precedent of not passing mandate reserves. We relocate all this money — this happens every year.”
