During their weekly meeting on Wednesday, ASUA covered issues ranging from how to better student accessibility to the possibility of student breakfasts with President Hart, among others.
The fee allocations discussed at the start of the meeting consisted of distributing to six clubs that made requests during the first meeting. Senators also moved to delay the 2012-2013 budget for the Arizona Students’ Association until next week’s meeting and added a historian position to the cabinet, which involves a 10-hour workweek attending ASUA events to take promotional pictures. In total, $8,570.76 went to the six clubs, and $500 went to support the historian position. The budget for ASUA is still in the black, leaving opportunities for events, according to ASUA Treasurer Alec Stapp.
ASUA Executive Vice President Krystina Nguyen also mentioned a possible concert for this year to promote student voting in the presidential election.
“This year, we are partnering with UA Presents, so we will be able to take on the costs of another concert in the fall,” Nguyen said, explaining that the association can typically only afford one concert a year. “So the one in the fall, since it is an election year, we can use that to do kind of like a rock-the-vote kind of concert.”
The Get Out and Vote campaign was also considered for a budget increase, from $5,000 to $10,000. The change remains under review.
ASUA Senator Vinson Liu discussed various outreach ideas for the organization to let students know more about the cabinet’s plans over the coming year. A Facebook page for ASUA has been created and their website is getting revamped to become more user-friendly, according to president Katy Murray. Senators also discussed the possibility of “senators on the mall,” a regular meeting between members of the cabinet and the student body.
Other forms of outreach that were considered included an Instagram account to be run by the historian. All of these are part of ASUA’s “big vision, or platform, for this year,” which, Nguyen said, is “visibility for students,” and allows them to see what the cabinet is doing in terms of finances and representation.
Murray also discussed her collaboration with President Ann Weaver Hart recently, which included possible talks of four meetings over breakfast between Hart and students across the span of the two semesters. Ideally, Nguyen added, some of the meetings would be with campus leaders, and others with all students to discuss various concerns. Murray and Hart also deliberated working on a five-year plan for the UA concerning the vision and goals of the university that would directly reflect what the students value in their experiences at the UA.
Additionally, Senator Logan Bilby is working on a marketing program with the Eller College of Management to increase exposure for Career Services. He plans to change the college’s desktop backgrounds and put up information on projectors for students to look at while waiting for class to begin that list the department’s services in an effort to spread awareness of the resources.
Bilby’s initiative comes a week after passing a Career Services fee proposal which now allows students to pay $5 each undergraduate year for the services instead of the one-time $25 fee during their senior year.
