My fully-charged Mac battery usually drains after at least four hours of rapid notetaking on the drama of the weekly A.S. Council meeting; tonight, though, it didn’t even reach 50 percent before the final roll call was announced.
Audible gasps filled the A.S. Forum as the Week Three meeting ended at 7:30 p.m.
2007-08 A.S. President Marco Murillo made an appearance, congratulating both the council and current president Utsav Gupta for “taking a lot of heat from the Koala,” and dealing effectively under pressure in front of the student body.
In member reports, Associate Vice President of Student Services Meredith Madnick showed a cute little advertisement, shot in the CLICS library, for the Amp energy drink, a product of Triton Television.
Vice President of External Affairs Gracelynne West announced that there would be a state voter registration drive. She said she hopes to gather at least 1,500 signatures.
Marshall Chair Tanvir Dhillon shared plans to provide an all-college free hot dog on a stick to all near the day of Sun God.
The February demands of the Black Student Union asked for a formation of committees with both administrative and student representation. Campuswide Senator Bryant Pena announced his position on one of these committees, which focuses on creating a mandatory diversity course requirement for all the colleges.
Transfer Senator Adam Powers presented a PowerPoint slide regarding the Villagers — his affectionate name for the residents of the new transfer-student on-campus housing.
His presentation highlighted the various Village events and their success rate, gauged by surveys he handed out at last week’s barbeque event.
The A.S. meeting was virtually empty, and a call for quorum revealed that, for the second week in a row, only 18 voting members were present — one more than needed for quorum.
Advocate general Parminder Sandhu gave a warning about absences, and promised to bring them to the table at next week’s meeting.
In a report from the finance committee, Gupta justified the hiring of an athletics consultant for $28,000 to investigate both Division-I sports teams and a football team at UCSD. The council will fund $7,000 of the consultant’s salary from Enterprise Income, while the rest will be split between the athletics department, the chancellor’s fund and the vice chancellor’s fund.
“[The consultant] was the most experienced and most affordable option… and in tune with the NCAA, and the knowledge of requirements to play,” Gupta said.
VP of Finance and Resources Peter Benesch had good news for the Sun God Festival: He pointed to an unused $1,000 line item on the executive budget. It was meant for the student-government bridge program, which would have been used to transport A.S. council out of San Diego to bond with other communities.
“Well, there’s a need for a Sun God water slide, so we’re going to put those funds to good use on May 13,” Benesch said.
