The Senate requested UC regents extend the admissions deadline to Dec. 15, a new STEM committee created and a new External Affairs chair was confirmed
The Nov. 19 ASUCD virtual special Senate meeting was called to order at 6:10 p.m. by Senator Amanjot Gandhoke, in the absence of President Kyle Krueger.
Emergency resolution SR #3, introduced by interim Senator Michelle Lester, calls on the UC Regents to extend the submission deadline for students for the 2020-2021 admission cycle; as it stands, the deadline is Nov. 30.
“It is a unique situation,” Senator Erika Valle said. “I think we could all agree that with everything being online and remote, the pandemic has been difficult enough for us who are already University of California students.”
The resolution, which would extend the submission deadline to Dec. 15, came to the table as a suggestion from UC Berkeley. Some senators had concerns that the application extension of two weeks was not long enough; however, Senator Jane Casto thought that any extension could make a huge impact on students.
“As long as we can get an extension, that would be awesome,” Casto said. “Even those two weeks would be major for a lot of people.”
Despite the concerns about the date of extension, Gandhoke was the sole ‘no’ vote and with two additional abstentions, the motion passed.
Maya Bhadury, a third-year environmental policy analysis and planning and economics double major, authored SB #32, which intends to strengthen environmental sustainability guidelines to increase alignment with the campuswide policies and practices as well as increase audits to twice per quarter.
“A lot of our policies didn’t line up with campuswide and UCOP wide sustainability policies,” Bhadury said. “We also noticed that EPPC’s auditing duties were insufficient, it was just once per quarter and nothing super strict.”
Senate Recorder Daniel Wallace submitted his resignation for the end of the quarter due to concerns about balancing a demanding work schedule.
“I’ve enjoyed working with the Senate,” Wallace said. “I hope I’ve been useful in my time here, but I don’t think I’ll be very effective after this quarter.”
The Senate confirmed a new External Affairs Chair, third-year international relations major Natalia Waid, who said she intends to carry forward the vision of the outgoing chair, Shelby Sayler.
“ASUCD is one of the biggest reasons why I ended up choosing UC Davis,” Waid said. “Because I respect the fact that students have so much power and such a strong voice in how they want the campus to be run.”
Waid was previously nominated for Judicial Council Chair by Krueger, but did not receive a hearing because she was not present at the meeting. She said she does not have new projects she would like to implement at this time.
A new STEM committee was created via SB #33, authored by Senator Juan Velasco. He said the new committee needs members, citing that committees tend to die quickly without them.
“It is my hope that this committee will allow for an opportunity not just in student government,” Velasco said, encouraging the new committee to create projects that involve STEM.
Though social sciences will not be included in the new committee, Hunter Ottman, the chair of the ASUCD Environmental Policy and Planning Commission, urged the table to seek out students from a diverse field of study in STEM.
“This is something that is tricky because you can’t put in writing one committee member from each of those fields,” Ottman said. “So, it’s going to be a balancing act to make sure that you are following fair practices for hiring but at the same time trying to make sure it doesn’t go one way or the other.”
Senator Samantha Boudaie introduced an ASUCD buddy system as part of onboarding for new senators that paired senators-elect with senior senators from the opposing slate. She intends to increase positive non-partisan communication on the table.
“Should they have any confusion, they have someone that they can reach out to that isn’t explicitly in their slate,” Boudaie said. “We’re all on the same team, which is team UC Davis students.”
Written by: Kathleen Quinn — campus@theaggie.org
