Judicial Council Chair confirmed after vacancy for five weeks and the previous week’s unconstitutional meeting
The Nov. 12 Senate Meeting was called to order at 6:10 p.m. by Vice President Emily Barneond.
The meeting moved into Judicial Council recommendations. Senator Amanjot Gandhoke introduced fourth-year statistics and computer science double major Nathan Chan as Judicial Council Chair candidate. Chan has been on the Judicial Council for four years.
“Nathan is the only person in the entire association that has enough qualifications to take on this role,” said External Affairs Vice President Maria Martinez.
Chan was confirmed as Judicial Council Chair.
Environmental Policy and Planning Committee (EPPC) Chair Hunter Ottman delivered the EPPC Quarterly Report.
Ottman expressed EPPC’s contribution to upcoming legislation—specifically Senate Bill #32.
“This is our audit team’s rewrite of Chapter 18 of the ASUCD bylaws, revitalizing the ASUCD sustainability audit that EPPC has been mandated to conduct every other year,” Ottman said.
Academic Affairs Commission (AAC) Chair Navreet Hundal delivered the AAC Quarterly Report.
AAC is promoting an online-instruction basic needs resource guide. Resources for students amid online instruction include: Shields Library textbook services, Wi-Fi hotspots, laptop loaner programs and housing, food and mental health resources
The California Aggie’s Editor-in-Chief Anjini Venugopal delivered The California Aggie’s quarterly report.
Barneond moved the senate table into ex-officio reports.
President Kyle Krueger introduced ASUCD’s efforts with the Academic Senate to impose a mandatory asynchronous learning protocol.
“The executive office and the Graduate Student Association sent a joint letter to the Academic Senate some time ago asking for mandated asynchronous courses to help create equity during a time when access to academic material is not equitable,” Krueger said. “We received a response and they have indicated that although they are not able to mandate asynchronous courses for all courses, they are willing to work with us ahead of time to indicate whether a course will be synchronous or asynchronous. We are working on our response to that right now.”
Martinez discussed efforts with the Government and Community Relations department and the director of financial aid to double the Pell Grant aid amount, noting that the External Affairs Office will host events in the future to discuss the progress of their efforts.
Chan, after being newly confirmed as Judicial Council Chair, challenged the constitutionality of his title as an ex-officio member, saying that he would later send out a memo to explain his reasoning.
Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission (ECAC) Chair Yalda Saii said ECAC is working on training and revising a statement they made this past summer.
Gender and Sexuality Commission Chair (GASC) Jane Casto has been meeting with candidates for GASC vacancies.
Internal Affairs Commission (IAC) Chair Julian Garcia said IAC put up a vacancy listing for the Aggie Mentors program and two vacancies on the commission.
The meeting moved into elected officer reports.
Senator Samantha Boudaie said she helped IAC with the bylaw rewrite.
“The bylaws, as we all know, have been very disorganized,” Boudaie said. “We’re working on getting it all cleaned up.”
Senator Laura Elizalde, along with Senators Lucas Fong, Khalil Malik, Tenzin Youedon and others have been investigating the chancellor’s decision to cut physical education courses.
Malik had been focusing efforts on the past ASUCD election.
“A lot of students just don’t know that that’s happening.” Malik said. “We should be doing everything we can to promote that to our undergraduate student body.”
During public discussion, CALPIRG Campus Organizer Nico Gist introduced CALPIRG’s recent campaign work following the election.
“We’re moving on to four new campaigns for the rest of the quarter: 100% renewable energy, stopping plastic pollution, addressing equitable access and making textbooks more affordable,” Gist said.
Barneond moved the meeting into public discussion, and she and Garcia introduced the bylaw rewrite project. Bylaws were revised for grammatical errors and professional correctness.
“It categorizes everything into three sections,” Barneond said. “The first one being governing structure, then governing practices, then business practices. No content was altered; rather, content was cleaned.”
All the bills on the consent calendar passed with no objections.
The meeting then moved into new legislation.
“An ASUCD Senate Resolution requesting that campus administration immediately rescind its decision to eliminate the Physical Education (PE) program effective winter quarter, 2021 or, subject to the outcome of a campus-wide re-vote, cease collecting SASI fees from undergraduate students,” reads Senate Resolution #2.
Senate Bill 32 refers to a bill to revise the guidelines for environmental sustainability. Senate Bill 33 creates a STEM committee “in order to promote more STEM projects within the association.”
President Krueger, with the help of Boudaie and Malik, introduced emergency legislation: a constitutional cleanup amendment before the election. The legislation passed.
Barneond adjourned the meeting at 9:30 p.m.
Written by: Hannah Blome — campus@theaggie.org
