The Associated Students of the University of Arizona, the university’s undergraduate student governing body, met on Wednesday, March 3, over Zoom to discuss a new sustainability resolution in collaboration with Students for Sustainability and vote on Campus Closet funding.
SFS Resolution
Two students from SFS came to speak with the Senate regarding a resolution they had worked to create with Senators At-Large Lady Elli and Rodrigo Robles. Nick Swenson and Seliah McCasland, who are both members of the SFS Waste Reduction Committee, spoke on behalf of 10 other students that worked with the senators to create the resolution.
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The proposed resolution highlighted the need to reduce single-use plastics on the UA campus, particularly the Arizona Student Unions and the UA Bookstore. The resolution states that the bookstore alone uses 50,000 plastic bags annually, which “promotes a culture of waste” on campus and must be addressed in the university’s “efforts to become a leader in sustainability.”
The resolution proposed continued efforts in the Skip the Straw campaign, replacing plastic bags with paper ones, charging a $1 bag fee, implementing bag-use reduction advertisement at campus stores and collaborating with stakeholders to encourage a sustainable reduction of single-use plastic mindset campuswide.
The resolution will be voted on in the coming weeks.
Campus Closet Funding
The Senate voted on whether or not to fund Campus Closet, whose executive director visited the Senate meeting a couple weeks ago to request funding. The funding would be going towards pants hangers, clothing markers and an iPad that would aid in the organization of distributions. Campus Closet requested between $800 and $900 for these items.
The starting appropriations budget for the Senate this year was $20,000, which has only been spent on Campus Closet funding last semester, leaving the Senate with over $19,000. Senator Alexandra Devereux of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences suggested that the Senate give the maximum amount requested of $900, which all the Senators agreed upon.
The Senate voted and unanimously passed giving $900 in funding to Campus Closet.
Elections
The deadline for interested candidates to turn in their application to run for a position closed on March 3. Elections for next year’s senate and executive officers are approaching and will be held this month, starting with the general elections from March 15-16.
Primary elections will be held March 22-23. It has not yet been specified how elections will be held given the current circumstances.
The admissions and advising open house that was tentatively scheduled for the end of February has been moved to late March.
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