For the second time, Associated Student Government postponed debate on the issue of recognizing and funding religious student groups Wednesday evening.
ASG passed new funding guidelines for student groups, but the prohibition on recognizing religious groups in order to give them money from the Student Activities Fee was temporarily reinserted after a proposal by outgoing Executive Vice President Matt Bogusz
More time was needed to work through details with university administration, said Bogusz, a Weinberg junior.
Shortly after Bogusz proposed the amendment, it passed without opposition. He then made a short speech in favor of further minor changes to the executive committee’s student group guidelines.
“OK, the guidelines are great,” Bogusz said. “We fixed them up a bunch, and we’ll deal with the religious issue in a couple weeks.”
The additional guideline changes, mostly centered on clarifying language and procedure, also passed quickly.
The Senate also swore in two of its new executive board members: Executive Vice President Vikram Karandikar and Academic Vice President Michael McGee.
In his inaugural address, Karandikar thanked voters for supporting him.
“I’m really excited to do (this job as EVP),” the McCormick sophomore said. “I’ve wanted to do this for whoever voted, and I’ve wanted to do this for a while.”
McGee said his first act would be to recover from the strains of campaigning.
“As academic vice president, I’m going to try and go back to class and pass all my classes so I can stay on,” the Communication sophomore said.
Most of the current executive board of the Senate, including outgoing President Jonathan Webber, made their final appearances. In his farewell speech, Webber thanked members of the executive board members individually for their contributions and praised incoming Senate and executive board leaders.
The Weinberg senior took time to list the accomplishments of his term in office, but also said many things he had worked toward accomplishing would not be completed in his term.
“Change takes time,” Webber said. “Especially in a university as large as Northwestern, where the bureaucracy does exist.”
