In the 34-minute Senate meeting on Friday, the Downtown student government Senate flew through several funding requests and then appointed the chairs for four of its new committees.
The Senate nominated each senator before approving them, with the nominations seemingly decided upon before the meeting.
College of Public Programs Sen. Joey Amonett was appointed as chair for the Greek Life Committee. Amonett was chosen because of his experience in the Delta Upsilon fraternity.
Amonett is already in contact with ASU’s Greek Council about potentially bringing a fraternity Downtown.
Jessica Boehm, senator for Barrett, the Honors College, was chosen alongside Freshman Senator Stephanie Avalos to co-chair the Universal Committee.
The Universal Committee has a series of goals already in place, including unifying the Downtown campus, helping create universal committees on the other ASU campuses and uniting all of ASU.
Boehm said they expect the other three undergraduate student governments to create their respective universal committees before Thanksgiving.
School of Nutrition and Health Promotion Sen. Eneida Shqalsi and Senate Leader Zack Lindsay were going to be appointed as co-chairs for the Causes Committee. Lindsay was not at Friday’s meeting to accept the appointment, however, so the Senate plans to nominate them at the next meeting.
Serving as co-chairs for the Fine Arts Committee are Walter Cronkite School Sen. Torunn Sinclair and Freshman Sen. Amanda Manz, and for the Rights Committee, College of Public Programs Sen. Cecilio Porras.
All appointments were unanimously approved with the appointed senator or senators abstaining.
After voiding the funds they granted themselves at the previous meeting, the Senate appointed itself $1,766.33 to pay for the Buy Local, Be Local Food Truck Fiesta.
Students voiced concern at previous meetings about the transparency of the government’s request, so the government now is filing the request like every other student organization.
“We’re going to be going through the exact same process as any other student organization does,” Director of Finance Sam Tongue said at the meeting.
The request calls for about five vendors to fill Taylor Street on Nov. 8 in an attempt to make students aware of local businesses.
The request was originally for $2,036.33, but Director of Public Relations Danielle Chavez said the cost of signs and a banner could be taken out of her marketing budget. This amendment was unanimously passed, as was the final amount.
The Residence Hall Association received $2,000 for 12 members to go to the Intermountain Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo., from Nov. 10 to 13.
The Senate and Executive Board were pleased RHA said they would give the government a presentation about what they learned at the conference.
The request was unanimously approved.
The Phi-Alpha Honors Society requested $650.00, the bulk of which is intended for t-shirts for forty-eight of its members. The shirts are each $10.25. This is more expensive than the Senate usually allows shirt prices to be for allocation – generally requesting that organizations keep shirt prices to less than $7.
Phi-Alpha justified the pricey shirts with their status as an Honors Society. As such, they wish to portray a more professional image by purchasing collared shirts with a logo, which bump up the price.
The Senate unanimously approved this request as well.
At Friday’s meeting, $4,416.33 was allocated, bringing the total budget for the rest of the school year to $54,911.32.
Contact the reporter at annika.cline@asu.edu
