Chancellor Marye Anne Fox gave a most inspirational little speech at last night’s council meeting, which was somewhat poorly attended. She commended an absent President Donna Bean for ‘her great leadership’ in bringing many student issues to the Chancellor’s Office and expressed her wish that the next A.S. president continue the trend.
During Fox’s short presentation she mentioned the need for California to pass Proposition 1A so that the university would have a feasible operating budget for the next year. She also joked about the Admit Day e-mail debacle.
‘I know you heard about our little problem,’ Fox said. ‘It’s generated a little bit of interest in the mail coming in, but I say that you can’t buy advertisement like that.’
Student Foundation President Sarah Chang and trustee and Revelle College Senator Katie Hall gave the latest update on UCSD’s inaugural Dance Marathon, which is set to take place on May 8 and 9 in the Price Center East Ballroom. Details will be available on ucsddancemarathon.ucsd.edu after Friday.
Last week’s open roll-call vote ‘mdash; in which coucilmembers call in a vote at will over an extended period of time ‘mdash; was unfortunately marred by the behavior of various councilmembers whom Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Lana Blank called out in a letter to the council. Speaker Jordan Taylor clarified to the council that lobbying an issue during open roll call is not allowed.
The council passed an amendment that eliminates changing votes during open-call voting.
Vice President of Finance and Resources Naasir Lakhani then approached the microphone stand and belted out the first line of the DuckTales theme song as an admirable segue into a presentation on the proposed changes in the funding process for student organizations.
Lakhani quickly sobered up as he explained the problems with the quarterly and weekly funding process as it now exists. His proposal includes an increase in the operating budget cap from $20 to $400. He also took the time to address all the possible critiques of the funding system.
‘Just do it,’ Hall said during discussion in hopes of speeding up the dialogue and voting process.
The issue was split into two and the changes to the standing rules passed 20-0-0. Voting on the document concerning the Student Organization Funding Advisory Board was postponed for a week so that Lakhani could rework and clarify the language defining the composition and role of the committee.
Marshall College Senator Monica Figueroa opened up an old can of worms when she motioned to reconsider the open roll-call vote on last week’s hotly debated issue of whether the executive members could vote, which Associate Vice President of Student Advocacy Frank Carroll supported due to the apparently inappropriate lobbying that occurred during the open roll-call period. The motion passed 10-4-4, and was then mercifully postponed indefinitely.
Friday’s Bear Garden may be cancelled due to rain. Stay tuned for weather reports.