Technical and organizational challenges have delayed the launch of the ASSU Undergraduate Senate website, limiting access to the Senate’s proceedings, bills and funding decisions, all of which are required by ASSU bylaws to be publicly available.
As a result of a recent student-led campaign to extend alumni access to Stanford email addresses, the classes of 2009, 2010 and 2011 will have access to their @stanford.edu accounts until May 31, 2012. After this date, email sent to those addresses will be forwarded to an @alumni.stanford.edu account for an additional year.
The ASSU Senate recently imposed a $400 spending cap on class president campaigns in response to big spending from slates during election season. The money spent on the campaigns was, appropriately, seen as ridiculous and prohibitive to some potential candidates, and this spending cap is certainly a good start. But it’s only a start.
One of the last bills passed by the 12th ASSU Undergraduate Senate before its April 26 turnover imposed a campaign spending cap of $400 on future class president slates.
Though the Nominations Committee (NomCom) is an essential part of the ASSU, the committee and its purpose is not widely known among the general student population. The members of next year’s committee have recently been nominated and are awaiting confirmation from the Undergraduate Senate and Graduate Student Council (GSC).
More than a week after ASSU election results have been released, we are as relieved as any other students (except perhaps the candidates themselves) to be done with our annual exercise in representative government. Despite our reluctance to protract conversation on such a tired subject, the results of these elections are enormously compelling. In particular, this Board notes the continued dominance of SOCC endorsees, a sharp decline in graduate voter participation and the ambiguity of the ROTC vote. We also urge the next generation of ASSU leaders consider these trends when they enter office, and make good on their campaign promises to improve student engagement and advocacy.
Last night at El Centro Chicano, the Office of Judicial Affairs and the ASSU co-hosted a forum to garner student opinions and perspectives on the University judicial process. The event brought together staff from the Office of Judicial Affairs, ASSU Senators, members of the Executive Cabinet, students with a personal connection to the judicial process and other interested parties.
While most student groups receive funding from ASSU Senate and GSC general fees collected from students, Volunteer Student Organizations (VSOs) must rely on special fees for their larger budgets. As stipulated by the 11th Undergraduate Senate, groups must petition for signatures from 10 to 15 percent of the student body to be on the special fees portion of the spring ballot if they wish to grow their budgets by more than inflation, which is approximately 1.5 percent. The bill under discussion would return the joint by-laws to the way they were before, allowing student groups to grow their budgets up to 10 percent plus inflation without petitioning.