At Tuesday night’s USG meeting, the 141st Senate held their last meeting before new elected officials take office. The meeting ran longer than previous ones, the reason being the agenda was filled with funding proposals, updates, document amendments and more.
Sustainability Chair Finley Davis presented first, mainly detailing the progress the Sustainability and Campus Infrastructure (SCI) committee has made so far this year. Among the updates were efforts to meet with campus operations to improve waste management at Leavey Library and, eventually, throughout the university. Right after, Academic Affairs chair David Mkrtchian presented on the progress he has made since entering the position in January. Mkrtchian is working on a General Education (GE) modifications project: an effort to reshape the university’s G (Citizenship in a Diverse World) and H (Traditions and Historical Foundations) required courses for undergraduate students. Using student and faculty input, he is working on adding more course options to these two GE categories. Additionally, he is working with cultural assemblies and faculty members to improve cultural studies on campus to tailor to student’s needs. A recent example of this would be to shift from Iberian Studies to Iberian and Latin Studies.
Introduced at the last meeting, the Senate unanimously approved a resolution in support of faculty calls for higher salaries. They intend to follow up with the USC administration to make sure the resolution is heard of.
At this meeting, Senator Nivea Krishnan introduced a resolution named Petition Recognition: a framework so USC can officially acknowledge any student petition of over 1,500 signatures. At this time, the USC administration has no obligation to recognize a student petition. This resolution would force USC officials to acknowledge student concerns and make official statements and, if needed, actions to resolve these issues. The Senate will vote whether to approve the resolution at the next meeting.
Later in the meeting, the Senate voted to formally support the incorporation of the Military Associated Student Assembly (MASA) and the Middle East North African Student Assembly (MENASA) as official student assemblies, complete with members, funding and leaders. MASA and MENASA have attended several USG senate meetings to express their interest in becoming official. During the MENASA voting, the Senate noted that, while USC will not formally release demographic information on MENA students on campus, there are at least 700 students with MENA surnames. The USC MENA community, including students, faculty, staff and donors have advocated for a student assembly or any type of formally recognized organization for about seven years.
Next, Senators introduced amendments to the USG Bylaws and the USG Constitution. The amendments called for future senators to be assigned advocacy liaisons in order to better communicate and collaborate with the USG Advocacy department. Other amendments included changes to make office hours more manageable for senators and to improve upon several technicalities within the elections process.
The final two funding proposals of the year were introduced towards the end of the meeting. The first funding proposal was for “Off the Record,” a collaboration between Modern Minority Theater and Musical Theater Repertory. The project calls for a little over $1,000 to help underrepresented artists involved in theater gain recognition and growth opportunities. The proposal aims to help queer artists, disabled artists, artists of color and artists of other marginalized communities.
The second funding proposal, introduced by Senator Hunter Hinson, is to fund the USC History Fund. Hinson noted the university’s past troubles that often go overlooked, one example being the mistreatment of Japanese American students during World War II. During his presentation, Hinson noted the disappearance of materials from the USC Archives and Special Collections. He is hoping the USC History Fund, modeled after a similar program at Princeton University, will help fund multiple projects to study USC history with a focus on racism, anti semitism, xenophobia and treatment of the surrounding community. If approved, the USC History Fund will bring together the USC History Department and The Scroll, along with its 1880 Project. He hopes future events such as the renaming of the former von KleinSmid center and the future renaming of Cromwell Field will not be “forgotten, overlooked, subordinated or suppressed.”
The two final funding proposals will be brought to a vote at the next meeting.
President- elect Hannah Woodworth introduced her and the Vice President elect Krishnan’s appointments for their executive cabinet for the 2022-2023 USG term. The nominations are as follows: for Chief of Staff, Diego Andrades; for Chief Communications Officer, Paul Yi; for Chief Programming Officer, Rianna Rios; for Chief Financial Officer, Brian Stowe; and for Chief Diversity Officer, Zaid Diaz-Arias. The only nominee not previously affiliated with USG is Paul Yi, a decision Hannah said will “allow for better transparency.” The next meeting will be the USG inauguration, where the nominated officers and elected USG candidates will officially take office.