The A.S. External Office distributed fortune cookies with messages such as “your conscience will be at ease once you’ve voted,” and directed readers to sovac.ucsd.edu, where they can register to vote until Monday.
AVP College Affairs Leonard Bobbitt gave a presentation about the history of his office, its purpose and its plans for the future. According to Bobbitt, the goal of the Office of College Affairs is to channel the six-college energy into a single community and a unified advocacy powerhouse. Bobbitt plans to do this by planning a charity drive, spirit run, council competition, know-your-rights campaign and overseeing first year council, among many other things.
Representatives from the leadership committee for cultural celebration came by to request a bigger budget.
“As you may or may not have remembered, Bear Garden was last Friday; it was the highest-attended Fall Bear Garden ever,” AVP Concerts & Events Eric Babajanian said. He also reported that through a new contract with Insomniac Events, they would be giving out five passes to Escape Wonderland on Oct. 27. Three passes will be raffled to those who buy a ticket for the Gaslamp Killer event at Porter’s Pub on Halloween before Oct. 23; the fourth will be given out via raffle at the Slice of Democracy event, and the last with one more raffle on the Facebook event page for Hullabaloo.
Warren Senator Hugh Tran reported that during his office hours he nearly doubled his voter registration numbers by getting 25 more students registered.
Shout-out to this week’s councilmembers of the week, Campus-wide Senator Jackie Clavin and the always-effervescent AVP College Affairs Leonard Bobbitt.
Muir Senator Andrew Buselt introduced his plan for an AVP Environmental and Social Justice Affairs position, which caused an almost excruciatingly long debate among councilmembers.
“The argument [is] that other things already deal with this, so let’s just not, just doesn’t sit right with me,” said AVP Diversity Affairs Elizabeth Garcia. “I mean, there are already other organizations on campus that deal with diversity, so why am I here?”
The councilmembers who opposed the creation of this position were reluctant to approve the new office because there would have to be a constitutional amendment in order to facilitate its creation.
It ultimately passed with a 23-0-4 vote, with most of the opposition in abstention.
“This is A.S. taking a stance on sustainability and social justice, and putting it out there that this is something we really care about and that this is something that UCSD cares about,” Marshall Senator Mariko Kuga said.
