ASUW met on Valentine’s Day for a record short hour-long meeting to learn about energy transparency on campus and debate the specifics of the proposed committee on ASUW budgetary reporting lines.
On the docket for the senators; catering and traveling expenses funding approval for student organization’s events, passing legislation creating a distance student scholarship for the amount of $5,000 and introducing Senate Bills #2855 & #2856 for voting the following week.
Tuesday’s meeting, the first meeting since passing Senate Bill #2853 – Reforming Communications, Special Events, and the Order of Business for ASUW Senate Meetings accordingly adopted a new senate meeting structure, one without the lengthy “communications” section and a biweekly special event schedule.
Senator Luke Macey, of the ASUW Sustainability Coalition, began the evening as the Special Event speaker.
His project, Campus Heartbeat, aims to become a long term resource for students, faculty, and staff alike through a website and developing app which would give transparent access to the university’s energy use data.
“We’re going to try to find ways of pinpointing energy inefficiencies on campus.” Said Macy.
“When institutions do go public with their data, at first, they might face a little bit of scrutiny. But on the other hand, it is an opportunity to make sustainability open source, to allow anyone to access this data and actually contribute to making the university more energy efficient.”
This is a goal which Macy asserts could support cost savings, and redirect the large portion of tuition fees reserved for energy, into other areas of life at UW.
During “New Business,” a time when legislation is introduced and discussed prior to committee recommendations, senators debated membership of ASUW President Alison Brown’s Ad-Hoc Committee on ASUW Budgetary Reporting Lines and Policies.
Currently, ASUW reports “authoritatively and budgetarily to the Division of Student Affairs and under the direction of the Vice President of Student Affairs as well as the Dean of Students” according to president Brown’s Charge Letter.
This committee, to be created and disbanded within a brief 3-4 week timeline, is tasked with providing the senate a recommendation on whether ASUW ought to pursue a shift in their reporting lines away from the Division of Student Affairs and toward the Division of Financial Affairs.
“Ultimately, this [current] structure provides difficulty at times as the student government may be advocating for items that are different or in opposition to that of the administration.” Said president Brown in her charge letter.
“At times, this balance can result in differences in priorities or conflicts of interest that exist within the structure.”
Decisions around the appropriation of student funds, $914,590 portion of ASUW’s roughly $1.148 million total functional annual budget for FY23, have created continued disagreements between the two bodies.
Committee membership and the repercussions of their ultimate decision remain to be seen. With elections fast approaching, campaign season beginning next week, and the positions of President and Vice President available for the taking, ASUW faces a busy 3 weeks ahead of Spring Break.
