The Senate also heard quarterly reports from R&DC, HAUS, SSCF and Aggie Mentors.
By Sonora Slater — campus@theaggie.org
At 6:14 pm on Thursday, January 12, Vice President JT Eden called for the first Senate meeting of the year. He then called Roll and recited the UC Davis Land Acknowledgment.
The first item on the agenda was the oath of office by International Student Representative Keven Zhou, a third-year business economics major, and Judicial Council member Gustavo Pichardo Villasenor, a fourth-year political science major.
The Senate then moved to the election of a Senate president pro tempore for the winter term.of President Protemporeelected by the Senators at the beginning of each quarter and presides over the Senate sessions in the absence of the Vice President.
Senator Zeff Schnellbach nominated Senator Gaius Irupeju for the role, and Senator Stephen Fujimoto nominated Senator Priya Tarleja in the spirit of encouraging competitive elections.
As for why he nominated Tarleja, Fujimoto said, “His passion and focus are on fostering collaboration among table members and building relationships between the Senate and students.”
A vote was then held in the Senate, which voted 7 to 5 in favor of Ilupeju. Irupeju was thus elected and took a new seat next to Eden.
It then moved on to recruiting senator units and committees. At the beginning of each quarter, senators select a few of each to work more closely together throughout their term.
Fujimoto asked for a post on the Election Reform Commission to share his thoughts on how to make elections more competitive. increase voter turnout.
Moving on to public comment, Schnelbach reminded the table to regularly check in with assigned committees and establish relationships.
Chairman Jahanvi Narwal then made a quarterly report to the Research and Data Commission (R&DC). The committee is currently working on building a website and managing surveys to help students choose names and designs. New ASUCD cow mascot.
Looking forward to the rest of the quarter, the committee plans to create data visualizations and infographics from past research to make the research “more digestible and shareable.” said Narwhal.
Annette Gutierrez, a sophomore majoring in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, submitted her Quarterly Report for Housing Advice for Undergraduates (HAUS). This quarter, Gutierrez said their main goal is to successfully host a housing fair in February.
Student Health and Welfare Committee (SHAWC) Chair Hiba Shafi is joined by Sergio Bocardo Aguilar, a third-year political science major, Julia Miller, a second-year human development major, and Emily, a fourth-year double psychology and sociology major. Gavidia, nominated 1st year Biology major. Simone Subedi makes her a member of SHAWC. They were all confirmed.
Alana Webre, a fifth-year environmental policy and planning major, presented quarterly reports for the Student Sustainability Career Fair (SSCF) after being confirmed as chair of the committee.
The SSCF aims to highlight career paths in the environmental field, and Webre said it will host a career panel in the seventh week of the quarter where three to five professionals will share their environmental career experiences. am.
The committee is also considering working with Aggie Studios to host professional headshot photo opportunities and Aggie Reuse to host professional clothing drives.
Next, fourth-year psychology student Brooke Isrow presented her quarterly report for the Aggie Mentors Committee. This committee is intended to provide new and transfer students with supplemental mentors to help them find resources and navigate UC Davis.
Created as a fully remote program in 2020, the Commission has switched to a more in-person program this year. However, according to Isrow, many people are still open to remote mentoring. In addition to this potential complexity, Isrow said the committee’s main challenge this year is to attract members. Several senators have proposed advertising ideas.
Eden then gave a short presentation on how the bill would be passed to help new members of the Senate better understand the ASUCD legislative process.
After a short break, the Senate table turned to the report of the elected officers. Meanwhile, Eden said he was making progress to get a microphone for the Senate Chamber.
Since there were no new laws, they were then set to unanimously pass laws on the consent calendar, including SB #43, SB #44, and SB #45. The Consent Calendar contains laws that are considered uncontroversial, so they don’t need to be debated in Senate meetings before voting.
SB #43 will fund three UC Davis undergraduates with a one-time scholarship of $1,000 and $88.80 in fringe benefit costs upon completion of the new ASUCD Senate Fellowship Pilot Program.
SB #44 will allocate $11,988 to create an Inclusive Fellowship.
SB #45 will be allocating $5,220.59 for a social event called “Destination: Wakanda (A Celebration of Blackness bring to you by ASUCD)” on January 27th at the ASUCD Coffee House.
The Senate then turned to reviewing older legislation beginning with SB #37, which sought to convert the Advisory Board on Engagement and Outreach into a Commission.
Fujimoto expressed concern about the creation of the new committee, citing the historical difficulty of adequately staffing the committee and the lack of credibility of sufficient interest in the committee’s goals. , Schnelbach said: [the] Given that the outreach-focused committee will address “one of the [their] They are currently facing historically low voter turnout and low engagement, which is their biggest problem as a Senate table.
After further discussion, SB #37 passed unanimously.
SB #41 was submitted by the Home Affairs Committee and SB #40 was withdrawn.
Constitutional Amendment (CA) No. 79, also known as the “Fujimoto Amendment,” sought to create an improved recall process so that student groups could vote for replacement candidates in conjunction with the recall vote.
The constitutional amendment was resubmitted after being first debated in the fall. This amendment includes a waiver of the removal of the ASUCD’s Chairman or Internal Vice-Chairman. In this case, successors are recruited through normal lines of succession, with additional voting requirements for recall election results to take effect.
Changes to CA #79 were adopted and passed unanimously. It will be voted on in the spring elections. While the statute’s text was being amended, several members of the Senate table debated the pros and cons of the statute with names such as the “Fujimoto Amendment.”
President Radhika Gode said, “It’s a bit of a complaint. ‘Why are we naming the bill? And why are we naming the amendment?'”
Schnerbach said he somewhat agrees with Gohde’s concerns when it comes to domestic law, but sees public-facing laws, such as constitutional amendments, benefit from naming them because they are easier to understand with names. i thought i could get it.
“In my humble opinion, a little more internal sort of nomenclature is being explored, but that’s a step away from the completeness of what it’s doing,” Schnerbach said. I think the laws you see, the internal bills, need to be clear to the point and don’t really need a silly name, but to make it more understandable to the general public, the I agree with the name.”
Fujimoto said he understood the concerns and appreciated the feedback, but said the nomenclature was consistent with the bylaws.
Senator Aarushi Raghunathan said he supports the nomenclature to engage the public in what the Senate is doing.
“If I told a friend about the 79th Amendment to the ASUCD, they would tell me to shut up,” Raghunathan said. “If you tell them what it is specifically and give it a fun name, they might actually pay attention and vote for it.”
The Senate has since moved on to approve the minutes of its last three meetings after an early postponement of the agenda at its final meeting in the fall quarter.
They then moved to an open forum, during which Gawde suggested. keep up the tradition Passing a resolution asking the University of California, Berkeley Student Union to change its name from “ASUC” to “ASUCB”, Fujimoto demanded that all quarterly reports be made public. Schnerbach suggested that each senator create an additional “bite-sized” report on their weekly activities and publish it on his social media in a more digestible format.
Eden has postponed the meeting to 9:47pm
Written by: Sonora Slater — campus@theaggie.org