T-shirts and empty Senate seats were the most contentious issues at Wednesday’s Associated Student Government meeting.
“There’s kind of a consensus in the student body that the ASG doesn’t do anything,” said Bobb senator Nancy Dong. She said T-shirts could combat this attitude.
The Weinberg freshman addressed ASG about a bill that would appropriate Student Activities Fee funding to purchase T-shirts for ASG members. The bill failed to pass because of the unease about spending student money on the shirts.
Dong, who is part of ASG’s Public Relations committee, said the T-shirts would have improved ASG’s standing on campus by making senators more identifiable and more connected to the rest of campus.
Dong cited other student groups on campus, including Dance Marathon and the Panhellenic Association, whose T-shirts make them identifiable to other students. Her bill proposed buying a shirt for each ASG member with the phrase “bleed purple.” ASG’s budget includes $5,000 from the Student Activities Fee to spend as it sees fit.
Many of the senators agreed the shirts would have a positive effect, but the notion of using Student Activities Fee money sparked debate.
“Our responsibility is to make sure this money goes to something good, something to help the students,” said Weinberg senior Will Upton, ASG’s parliamentarian. Upton said buying the shirts would be “a PR disaster.”
ASG president Neal Sales-Griffin had a more positive attitude toward the bill, saying the point was “not to cause a big ruckus about students’ money.”
“I think the PR committee has made a really important point about our awareness and our visibility on campus,” Sales-Griffin said. “Everyone you see on campus is someone you should talk to and serve.”
The issue of low student interest in ASG surfaced again with the proposal of a bill addressing empty Senate seats. The bill, which failed, would have allowed ASG to appoint senators to seats residence halls and residential colleges have not filled. A proposed amendment to the bill called for appointing senators who are from constituencies near to those with empty seats.
The bill did not pass because some senators felt that this would not allow for specific enough representation, while others thought it would not be possible to find a senator from every residence hall and residential college.
Weinberg junior Jesse Garfinkel said it would be possible and necessary to find a representative from each constituency.
“You need to have direct accountability,” Garfinkel said after the meeting. “A representative must be from the district they’re representing. It’s a fundamental facet of representative democracy.”
