The Associated Student Government kept busy Wednesday night with 11 special orders, general orders and items of new, old and emergency legislation presented to the body. By the end of the evening, the body allocated funding to buy water for students on Dillo Day, recognized the Kaibigan group as A-Status and altered its election and campaign guidelines, among other tasks.
According to emergency legislation passed by ASG, Mayfest had originally requested 10,000 water bottles for Dillo Day from Pepsi, in accordance with Sodexho contracts. However, Pepsi donated fewer than 500 bottles, and the Office of Student Affairs was only able to supply funds for approximately 7,500 bottles.
The Senate allocated $853.24 to buy an additional 1,992 water bottles to be distributed to students on Dillo Day.
The Senate also approved adjustments to elections guidelines that were meant to prevent controversies like the one caused by an accusatory e-mail sent prior to April’s ASG presidential election runoff.
The Rules Committee mandated every manager officially involved in a campaign must be listed in a candidate’s entry documents. As such, the guidelines were adjusted to state that campaigning shall be defined as “any public action on behalf of a candidate by campaign staff.” Other changes included requiring candidates to “observe the rules of the Center for Student Involvement, laws of the City of Evanston, Residential Housing Authority, and Residential College Board” and prohibiting the use of tape as a campaign medium.
The changes now mean that election violations can be committed by a candidate and his or her staff, and no outside party. If a candidate’s supporter makes a statement against an opponent, the campaign is not held responsible.
Parliamentarian Grace Adamson also announced that the Election Committee had lost 300 votes when the server crashed during the election, and as a result would now require vote totals to be backed up every 45 minutes.
“These people had no way of knowing their votes were counted, and 300 votes is a lot of votes,” the SESP junior said.
The Senate formally recognized the Filipino student association Kaibigan as an A-Status group. ASG Financial Director Malavika Srinivasan said the group’s progress and ability to put on programming was “hindered by their status.” The SESP junior cited high attendance at the group’s two major events this year as cause for the approval of A-Status. The proposal passed without objection.
The meeting also included the confirmation of ASG’s technology director, Communication sophomore Andrea Han. Han has a knowledge of HTML, C++ and Java and said she plans to learn more programming languages.
“Regardless of what technical skills I have, I’m definitely willing to work for what’s best for ASG,” she said. “I hope to unify them under the umbrella of ASG and to make it more cohesive.”
Academic Director Muhammad Safdari, a Weinberg junior, presented Academic Committee projects for the coming year in “new business.”
Michael Gsovski contributed [email protected]
