The Feb. 24 Student Government Association meeting began with shuffling the agenda, bringing the allocation of spot-funding to the Asian American Association to the head of the meeting.
The AAA wants to bring the director and producer of a documentary about Vincent Chin to campus. AAA fundraised $500, but needed an additional $793 to bring the speaker There was some debate as to whether or not to give AAA the money, as the group did not include the speaker in its budget at the beginning of the year.
“They should look to make sure things like this are included in their annual budget,” John Cook School of Business Senator Raza Rashid said.
After some deliberation about the importance of including speakers in annual funding, the bill was passed.
The Senate then moved on to discuss the bill to amend the association’s bylaws regarding the tracking of funding for Chartered Student Organizations, proposed by the Financial Vice President Robert Moehle.
“This is a good step,” College of Arts and Sciences Senator Kale Kponne said. “But we need more details.”
A flurry of amendments were proposed to a particular point in the bill that stated: “Finance Committee’s findings on the level of success of the event will dictate to what extent SGA will continue to support the CSO in holding the event.”
Most of the amendments dealt with the wording, but senators could not agree how best to approach the problem. After deliberation, First Year Senator Chris Ackels interjected with a proposal to table the bill so that the senators could make it to the Billiken’s basketball game. The bill was tabled and the meeting adjourned early after frustrated words from SGA President Michael Harriss.
“We need to come prepared,” Harriss said. “Some of us are clearly reading these bills for the first time tonight.”
Harriss expressed annoyance that Senate didn’t seem to be make progress with the bills, and that a basketball game was more of a priority than the actual SGA meeting.