ASUCD Senate meetings are scheduled to begin Thursdays at 6:10 p.m. Times listed are according to the clock at the May 12 meeting location, the Memorial Union’s Mee Room. The ASUCD president is not required to attend senate meetings.

Meeting called to order at 6:10 p.m.

Adam Thongsavat, ASUCD president, present, left early

Bree Rombi, ASUCD vice president, present

Yena Bae, ASUCD senator, present

Miguel Espinoza, ASUCD senator, present, arrived late at 9:05 p.m.

Emmanuel Diaz-Ordaz, ASUCD senator, present, arrived late at 9:05 p.m.

Andre Lee, ASUCD senator, present

Amy Martin, ASUCD senator, president pro tempore, present

Mayra Martín, ASUCD senator, present

Tatiana Moana Bush, ASUCD senator, present

Darwin Moosavi, ASUCD senator, present

Matthew Provencher, ASUCD senator, present

Brendan Repicky, ASUCD senator, present

Rebecca Sterling, ASUCD senator, present

Eli Yani, ASUCD senator, present

Appointments and confirmations

Aaron Alvarado and Priscilla Wong were confirmed to the Gender and Sexuality Commission.

Ryan Hagens was confirmed as director of Campus Copies.

Eddie Truong was confirmed as director of Refrigerator Services.

Henry Chatfield was appointed as director of Entertainment Council.

Rosa Gonzalez, Rajiv Narayan, Ruth Lee, Dominique Chao, Megan Wilson and Amanda Alonzo were confirmed to the Student Health and Wellness Committee.

Unit director reports

STS/Tipsy Taxi Unit Director Sebastian Belser said that the unit is doing very well. Their new van should be delivered sometime in July, so it will be ready starting Fall quarter. He said the new Thursday night services have been successful thus far and will probably continue next year. He also said that charter division sales are doing well.

Megan Frantz from AggieTV said that Lip Dub has been completed and the video was put up Friday. She said that AggieTV is also starting to work on a short film about ASUCD and what it’s all about.

Consideration of old legislation

Senate Resolution 17, authored by Erica Padgett, co-authored by Alison Tanner and Thongsavat, introduced by Repicky, to grant SwoopThat.com use of the ASUCD name and logo. Sterling asked if Slugbooks or other booksellers, had been considered instead of SwoopThat. The bill passed unanimously.

Senate Bill 84, authored by Repicky, co-authored by Bae, Sergio Cano, Moosavi and Daniel Olivas, introduced by Repicky, to make the Aggie Public Arts Committee permanent. Dana Percoco said she was concerned that the bill had changed since the External Affairs Commission had seen it. The bill passed unanimously.

Senate Bill 91, authored by Patrick Sheehan, co-authored by Lee and Moosavi, introduced by Lee, to improve the transparency of spending bills. The bill passed unanimously.

Senate Bill 93, authored by Tanner, co-authored by Nick Sidney and Thongsavat, introduced by Martín, to change the process of hiring the chair of the Student-Police Relations Committee. The bill passed unanimously.

Senate Bill 92 authored by Bae, co-authored by Mark Champagne, introduced by Bae, to allocate $30,400 from Refrigerator Services Reserves to purchase 75 MicroFridges. The bill was tabled.

Public discussion

Rombi said she wanted to make sure that everyone knew how budget hearings would be held. She explained the schedule and the procedures. She said that senators should make sure to focus on the budget and not issues pertaining to other parts of the units.

Public announcements

Sterling said that the Davis Day of Service will be May 22 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. People can volunteer with the Special Olympics, Shields Library, Habitat for Humanity, Davis senior homes, the community building chalk mural and creek restoration.

Rombi announced that next week is Black Family Week.

Meeting adjourned at 9:51 p.m.

Open positions within ASUCD can be found at vacancy.ucdavis.edu. HANNAH STRUMWASSER compiles the senate briefs. She can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

ASUCD Coffee House patrons will soon be able to stare longingly into a painting of fresh produce while they eat their pizza.

In between Ciao Pizza and the microwaves, The Aggie Public Arts Committee (APAC) will be hanging a mural – hopefully by Fall 2011.

“This was one of our first projects,” said Daniel Olivas, chair of APAC. “We wanted to bring some art into the CoHo since it’s newly renovated.”

The mural will be composed of four canvases and will feature close-ups of various fruits and vegetables. Individual members of the APAC came up with their own designs and then voted for the best one.

Sarah DeRemer, the winning designer, said she was inspired by paintings with similar themes she had seen as a child.

“I like simplicity and the ability to use a wide variety of colors with a simple design,” she said. “I thought it would be visually interesting and relatable and applicable to the space.”

APAC received paint through an outside donation and paid for the canvases and paintbrushes with funds allocated from ASUCD Senate Reserves. The senate gave APAC $320 for 10 canvases and 12 brushes, although ASUCD is really only paying for five of the canvases.

For shipping reasons and to get the best price from the UC Davis Bookstore, APAC had to order the 10 canvases at one time, said ASUCD Senator Brendan Repicky. Peter J. Shields Library will pay for five canvases, which will be used for a mural in the 24-Hour Study Room.

DeRemer hopes the painting process will be finished by the end of summer and that the mural will be ready to go up by Fall 2011. She will be collaborating with friends in the art department and members of the committee in order to have the input of multiple artists.

Sharon Coulson, director of the Coffee House, said the wall by Ciao was the perfect place to put the mural.

“Hopefully it will speak to what we’re all about – freshness and colorfulness and that we serve a lot of healthy vegetables and healthy foods,” she said.

Though the mural in the Coffee House has been in the planning stages since Fall 2010, members of the Coffee House had to approve the color palate first. This caused some delay, but APAC was ultimately given no limitations.

APAC was created in May 2010 in hopes of increasing the amount of student-created public art on campus and in the greater Davis community. So far, the committee has created a Coffee House Art Show and also has plans to paint murals in the 24-Hour Study Room and the Activities and Recreation Center and create sculptures for the future Edible Gardens.

AKSHAYA RAMANUJAM can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

After a turbulent election process, the United Auto Workers Local 2865 (UAW) election committee has finished counting the graduate student union’s votes.

The incumbent group, United Students for Economic Justice (USEJ), won many of the Head Steward positions systemwide. The reform group, Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU), won the presidency and over 60 percent of the seats within the union’s Joint Council.

UAW represents over 12,000 readers, teaching assistants and tutors throughout the UC system.

According to a statement released by USEJ, the group won all of the Steward Head positions at UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara. They also won some Head Steward positions at UC Davis and UC Merced.

“On behalf of everyone involved in USEJ, we want to thank our supporters who have stood by us along the way, in our efforts to keep things positive and issue-focused,” wrote Daraka Larimore-Hall, former UAW president, in a statement released by USEJ. “For our part, we look forward to working with all members to continue building a strong, united, activist union at UC.”  

Issues with the ballot-counting began when members from both USEJ and AWDU challenged the election. The election committee voted to stop counting the ballots and send the election results to the union’s Joint Council so that they could make a decision about how to proceed.

After deliberation, the election committee, along with mediators, finished counting the ballots on May 8.

On the AWDU official blog, AWDU members said that it was now time to come together as a union and fight the current higher education crisis.

“A grassroots, bottom-up union is strong when it provides space for open debate, and we hope that every member continues to express criticism when necessary,” AWDU members stated on the blog.

– Hannah Strumwasser

It’s still possible that Gov. Jerry Brown is going to implement an all-cuts budget, which could mean a $1 billion cut to the University of California. The UC Board of Regents will be discussing strategies to combat this unprecedented cut, such as another 32 percent tuition increase.

The regents’ meeting takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday at UC San Francisco Mission Bay. One topic that will be discussed on Wednesday is the “Plan B” contingency budget, should the state adopt an all-cuts budget.

According to the discussion item, tuition increases must be considered. Under consideration is a proposal to accommodate any further reductions in State General Funds with an equivalent amount of revenue generated through fee hikes. If there’s an additional $500 million budget cut, then the proposed tuition increase would be 32 percent beginning Fall 2011. This is on top of the already approved 8 percent increase, also to begin Fall 2011.

“There are no additional ‘magic solutions’ to managing additional cuts, should an all-cuts budget become a reality at the state level,” states the discussion item. “Campuses have stated that they cannot absorb additional cuts without beginning to dismantle major programs and thus forever alter the quality of the University of California.”

The regents will also discuss increasing non-resident enrollment annually by 10 percent, which would generate $92 million per year, and increasing professional degree tuition annually by 8 percent, which would yield $60 million by 2015-16.

Executive Vice President of Business Operations Nathan Brostrom and Vice President of Student Affairs Judy Sakaki will also present Financial Aid strategies to the board on Wednesday. One goal is to ensure that UC students are able to help pay their fees through employment, but not be forced to work to the extent that it impedes on academic progress. UC students also should be able to manage their loans upon graduating, according to the discussion item.

Another goal is to raise the income ceiling for the UC Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, which covers all systemwide student fees, to $90,000 from its current $80,000. UC also hopes to start a program that would allow half of the systemwide tuition and fees to be covered for needy middle-income families. The income ceiling would be $120,000.

– Janelle Bitker

A man was robbed at knifepoint on Friday morning, said Lt. Thomas Waltz of Davis Police Department in a press release.

At 12:32 a.m., Davis police responded to a call on Lake Boulevard, where the victim said three or four black males entered his apartment, held a knife to his throat and shoved him into a bathroom. Electronics, clothing and a wallet were among the things taken. There were no injuries reported and the suspects are still at large.

– Becky Peterson

The current uprisings in the Arab world were one of the main topics of a lecture on Wednesday night hosted by The Middle East/South Asia Studies (MESA). A panel of accredited scholars and professors from UC Davis as well as other universities was present.

“The main goal was information,” said Suad Joseph, professor of anthropology. “The scholars have spent a lifetime studying this region and they can offer insight that you won’t get from a usual media source.”

The series was made possible by a grant from Faris Saeed, a Dubai resident who supports a number of MESA programs. The $250,000 donation was a major gift in the development of Arab Studies. It will be expended in the next several years on course development, such as developing a minor in Arab Studies, annual lecture series and support for scholarship opportunities, among other activities.

“We are very excited about the donation of $250,000,” Joseph said.

In addition, there was a public celebration as the Parsa Community Foundation gave a gift of $250,000, which was matched by on-campus partners and donors in the community, for a total of more than $600,000. This money will go to the expansion of courses as well as the development of a minor in Iranian Studies.

MESA is a recently developed program that is one of few in the entire nation with a core curriculum. From an idea that was rejected back in the 1970s, it has grown substantially through the work of students and faculty.

Wednesday’s lecture was highlighted by speeches delivered by several key professors and experts in their various fields.  

Beshara Doumani, professor of history at UC Berkeley, spoke exclusively about the idea of the phrase “the people want.” He said there is a sense of the people drawing upon sources other than secularism, and unity in revolution comes from a general desire for dignity.

Paul Amar, associate professor of global and international studies at UC Santa Barbara, took apart some of the myths that surrounded the current revolution in Egypt and provided alternate views to such ideas. Some of these myths included that the revolution in Egypt began as a result of youth in sexual turmoil and that the revolution could not occur without the Internet. He broke these misconceptions by claiming the revolution was a result of organized, employed youth without dependence on the Internet.

Susan Miller, associate professor of history at UC Davis, spoke of the revolution in Libya and the region’s uncertain future. The emerging revolution already has a government established, and that’s in direct conflict with the presiding government, she said.

With MESA’s new funds, the program hopes the lecture was the first of many.

“MESA has achieved a new plateau, and that will allow us to serve the students and the community in a broad range of programming to increase understanding about this critical area in the world,” Joseph said.

AMIR BEGOVIC can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Beginning next year, UC Davis officials have announced that the DJ Stage will not return for the Whole Earth Festival due to three aggressive crimes under investigation, including sexual battery and rape.

The reported rape of a 16-year-old girl occurred Friday night in a men’s bathroom in Wellman Hall, located just west of the DJ Stage. The victim was able to free herself of the suspect and return to her friends, but she didn’t make a report until Sunday morning. On Saturday night, there was a report of sexual battery of a 14-year-old, which occurred at the stage itself.

“The technopit area has been evaluated over the past four years and last year security was a huge issue,” said Brett Burns, director of Campus Unions. “This year with the severity of the instances, it made sense to say that the stage will not happen anymore.”

UC Davis Police Lieutenant Matt Carmichael said the stage attracted a larger and younger crowd this year, bringing in almost 1,000 people, including a large number of middle and high school students.

“The Whole Earth Festival is a good event and we had a few unfortunate crimes mostly contained to the DJ Stage,” Carmichael said. “Other than the few violent crimes, things weren’t really different from last year’s crimes.”

A third crime occurred near the stage, involving the violent beating of a 19-year-old male. Police arrested 19-year-old Woodland resident Ramiro Alejandro Cordova, who is accused of assault with great bodily injury. No arrests have been made regarding the rape or sexual battery, but police say they are following every lead and doing the best they can to find suspects.

Other crimes of the weekend included the arrest of a 16-year-old girl on suspicion of having marijuana for sale, three public drunkenness arrests, and 12 citations of alcohol-related infractions.

The Whole Earth Festival, which has occurred for the past 42 years during Mother’s Day weekend, attracts over 10,000 people a year and has featured the DJ Stage since 1998, along with crafts, food, music and workshops. Despite the crimes, the festival itself is not in danger of being shut down.

Student programmers will reevaluate the schedule for next year’s festival, without the stage and dangers it posed, Burns said.

Laura Damian and Racquel Esqueda, co-directors of the festival, said in a press release that they support the decision to remove the stage and will reevaluate next year’s programming with safety in mind. Over the weekend’s ASUCD budget hearings, ASUCD Controller Don Ho said the festival’s budget wouldn’t be cut with the removal of the stage. Rather, the funds for the dance pit will be allocated elsewhere.

Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Fred Wood said that the stage’s removal sends a message that this type of behavior is unacceptable.

“It can’t continue and it won’t be tolerated. We need to create a safe environment for everyone at this university…” he said in a press release. “We must recapture the intended spirit of the Whole Earth Festival, which has been a popular community event for decades.”

CHARLOTTE YOUNG can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.