I want to start this column by stating that I skipped a discussion section to attend this meeting and I have a midterm tomorrow. I hope you can appreciate my dedication to the work of our student government. With that said, as I’m sure everyone reading this already knows, the night began with public input. Sike! The first plot twist of the night was that there was no public input. The Council then moved into open forum as Campuswide Senator Odom talked about what he called the elephant in the room: Sigma Alpha Epsilon and “rush boobs.” While a full story on this topic will be released soon, I can say that Odom, the previous president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, talked about the national organization seizing control of their chapter’s social media. Odom also read an extensive quote from the current president of SAE, Robbie Wilson. Wilson explained that the two members involved in the incident, the infamous pledge and the member educator, were both expelled. This is a developing story. More to come. I’ve always wanted to say that.

The Council then moved into reports of members. AVP Concerts and Events Christian Walker spoke about the success of Bear Garden, an event with an attendance of 1,400 students. Also, Walker mentioned that the first artist for Hullabaloo was announced today, although he didn’t say who it was. After an extensive Google search,I figured out that is a band known as The Young Wild. Council then jumped to Special Orders. Warren Student Council President Akshay Tangutur, a member of the Student Fee Advisory Committee, gave a presentation on what the committee does. It’s all pretty straightforward. By the way, in case you didn’t know, we are all paying an additional $48 per quarter for a mental health fee. It is unfortunate that mental health is such an extensive problem, but I’m glad SFAC is taking the right steps to ensure everyone who needs help is receiving it.

This week’s special presentation was about the Campus Community Centers which was presented by the social justice peer educator at the Women’s Center (Senator Vahdani), the community liaison at the LGBT Center (Mercedes Orozco), and the culture and art intern at the Raza Resource Centro (German Octaviano). The presentation went over the different services and features of the five unique community centers on campus, the Cross Cultural Center, the Raza Resource Centro (which serves Chicano and Latino students) the Black Resource Center, the LGBT Resource Center (which hasn’t bothered changing the name but serves LGBTQIA students) and the Women’s Center. The Women’s Center is, according to Senator Vahdani, the best center, a pretty awkward thing to say in a conversation about intersectionality and inclusion, but I’ll take her word for it. I encourage everyone to check out the services that these various centers offer.

This was now my second time attending an A.S. Council meeting, and I again was not prepared when someone in the council exclaimed, “The factor of the week is Angela and Daniel.” I should have expected it, but once again this commotion caught me by surprise. As usual, following this, a music video was played. This time it was Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk.” This would have been exciting had I not heard it a million times before. And of course it wasn’t as good as last week’s “Wildest Dreams.” Next week, I’ll be ready and I’ll be expecting something by The Weeknd.

My favorite contribution to the Council came at the end of the night during the second open forum, which was after the second session of member reports (this meeting was all over the place). If you remember, last week Senator O’Neill was very frustrated during the discussion of the budget. This week, O’Neill had to save face by apologizing to Council for coming off as angry and stating that he had no beef with anyone on Council. This is only my second week and already I’ve seen drama and character development on Council. But in light of this apology, snaps for you Senator O’Neill. The last comment of the night came from AVP External Affairs Krystl Fabella who asked, “Who here likes Buzzfeed videos?” I was very tempted to raise my own hand (although my editor tells me I’m supposed to be a fly on the wall) and in my excitement I totally missed the point Fabella was trying to make. I can’t wait to come back next week and hopefully find out.