ASSU Co-Presidents Billy Gallagher ’14 and Dan Ashton ’14 have officially appointed their executive cabinet, selecting 15 cabinet members from a pool of 50 applicants. The cabinet held their first meeting on Monday evening.
Fossil Free Stanford, a student group focused on prompting University divestment from fossil fuels, dominated business at the ASSU Undergraduate Senate’s May 21 meeting. The Senate also discussed its role in the University’s judicial process and passed three bills that supported the Graduate Student Council’s 30K challenge, upgrades of the ASSU accounting staff’s computers, and the budget for fiscal year 2013-14.
As the 14th ASSU Undergraduate Senate leaves office, many of the body’s accomplishments are some that a majority of students may already take for granted.
While graduate student voter turnout increased slightly this year compared to 2012, fourteen graduate students were elected to Graduate Student Council (GSC) seats in this year’s ASSU elections, with the Graduate School of Business (GSB)’s seat still pending because of a five-way tie — with one write-in vote each — for first place.
While prospective undergraduate senators lobby for votes and student groups flyer for special fees, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) is struggling to do something much more elementary: finding enough candidates to fill elected positions and looking to turn around an institutional history of low interest and accomplishment.
This week’s ASSU elections will mark not only the selection of the University’s student government representatives but also the opportunity to for students to amend—for only the ninth time in over 40 years—the ASSU Constitution.
During a virtual emergency meeting this weekend, the ASSU Undergraduate Senate approved an amendment to the ASSU Constitution that, if passed by the student body during the spring elections, will allow some Senate seats to be reserved for upperclassmen.
At the ASSU Undergraduate Senate’s March 12 meeting, senators struggled with two amendments to the ASSU Constitution. One amendment was withdrawn after extensive debate, while the other was initially approved for the spring election ballot before senators realized it hadn’t received the necessary two-thirds approval.