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Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Senate resolution to add mental health resources onto student IDs passed at May 6 meeting

With the addition of this information on Aggie identification cards, ASUCD intends to make mental health resources more accessible

The ASUCD meeting was called to order by Vice President Emily Barneond at 6:10 p.m. on May 6. 

Emergency legislation SR #15 proposed that mental health resources be included on all Aggie ID cards to help address what Senator Michael Navarro said are growing concerns about students’ mental health following an increase in mental health crises during the pandemic.

The resolution, presented by Navarro, passed as emergency legislation by unanimous consent. 

Navarro noted that UC Davis has hired more mental health counselors, but he said new employees alone may not be enough to support students. 

“We have to advocate for mental health resources to be put to use by our students,” Navarro said. 

Senator Kabir Sahni presented Constitutional Amendment (CA) #72, which is intended to dissolve the Business and Finance Commission (BNF) and incorporate it into the Internal Affairs Commission (IAC).

“As a commission, BNF has systematically lacked legislative and project substance to no one’s fault,” Sahni said. “Its members applied for a learning experience and were met with disappointment.” 

Sahni said that many of the bills that are sent to BNF are also sent to IAC and that in the last year, BNF has only authored and introduced one bill.

Julian Garcia, the chair of IAC, provided the commission’s recommendation and said that the commission plans to create a vice chair of finance to help accommodate the new role.  

CA #72 was passed unanimously. 

Devin Santiago-Vergara, a third-year political science and psychology double major, and Mallika Hari, a second-year communications major, were sworn in as new senators. 

Professor Scott Carrell, an economics professor, and Rocko DeLuca, the deputy athletics director, gave a presentation to the senate showing the academic rigor of UC Davis athletes in comparison to other campuses. 

“What you can see is, athletes are doing incredibly well at UC Davis relative to all those peer groups in terms of federal graduation rate,” Carrell said.  

Both Carrell and DeLuca thanked students for their financial contributions to athletics

“Obviously, we wouldn’t exist without the funding [from] student fees,” DeLuca said.

Sarah Theubet, the committee chair of the Disability Rights Advocacy Committee (DRAC), said it is now fully staffed thanks to the confirmation of Annie Deng, a fourth-year psychology major, and Katherine Hamera, a second-year mechanical engineering and aerospace science and engineering double major. 

“I’m really excited to say that of everyone participating in DRAC, five of the seven committee members are actually people with disabilities,” Theubet said. 
Written by: Kathleen Quinn — campus@theaggie.org

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