USAC councilmembers cracked jokes and shared laughs during this week’s surprisingly short meeting.
General Representative Carlos Saucedo and Internal Vice President Gregory Cendana started off the laugh-fest with their witty presentation on creating a Campus Safety Commission, or CSC.
To grab the attention of drowsy, cold-suffering councilmembers, Saucedo reassured council that creating the CSC will not make the USAC meetings longer. The purpose of this advisory board, to include student leaders and safety officials, is to put on programs that cultivate a safer environment and address safety concerns on campus.
The commission will advise and evaluate policies and programs relating to sexual violence, on campus facilities, identity theft, use of skateboards, and more.
The light-hearted atmosphere grew a bit tense when council briefly touched on the Daily Bruin viewpoint column written by David Lazar, which called General Representative Samer Araabi’s social justice speaker series “anti-American.”
The column questioned the validity of USAC’s actions in using student fees to cover the honorariums used for paying speakers such as anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan. When Financial Supports Commissioner Shaun Doria expressed concern about using so much money for one series or event, Araabi reassured council that only the final speaker out of the eight speaker series remained.
Several councilmembers breezed through officer reports, but the pace of the meeting slowed when External Vice President Tina Park gave her rather detailed update on the success of a weekend conference in Sacramento, during which UCLA students including President Marwa Kaisey attended workshops and lobbied for student issues.
Academic Affairs Commissioner Nat Schuster earnestly encouraged councilmembers to check out the undergraduate student-initiated 88S seminars that will be available during spring quarter. Juniors and Seniors will teach these unique two-unit courses and interested students can sign up for these seminars during tenth week.
When the discussion shifted to the proposed bylaw changes regarding the creation of a funding study group within USAC, Schuster jokingly expressed frustration about voting being delayed for another week of discussion by the Constitutional Review Committee.
“Why vote on something this week when we can vote on it next week?” Schuster remarked, which got some soft chuckles from the table.
The funding study group is a non-voting group that will consist of seven students and two administrators whose goal is to concentrate on establishing greater transparency of USAC funds and helping student organizations gain access to these funds. Schuster hopes to make sure council does not neglect funding.
Kaisey expressed her concern that people would not want to serve on the study group since the meetings would be held at 9AM on Fridays.
Doria, who had been relatively quiet the entire meeting, spoke up, quite loudly I might add, to state that he doesn’t think this group is necessary.
“Right now Nat is his own funding study group and I’m my own funding study group. All this will be doing is putting someone’s name on it to add responsibility. It carries minimum weight. It doesn’t make a difference,” Doria said.
Since the friendly chat was turning into a not-so-friendly debate, the discussion was once again pushed to the CRC for next week’s agenda.
To conclude the meeting, General Representative Joline Price suggested adding a public comments section at the beginning of each USAC agenda.
Currently, members of the public can make comments pertaining to items on the agenda, but with this potential bylaw change, guests (and maybe even Daily Bruin reporters like me) could speak for a couple minutes to comment on virtually anything “USAC.”
Price hopes to “institutionalize student input into the functions of USAC” with this change. Council hopes to draw up the bylaw for voting at next week’s meeting.