Cheers erupted as ASG came to a close an hour early after confirming the Vice President of Analytics and passing B-status funding Wednesday night.
After senators engaged in a question and debate period, they confirmed McCormick junior Grant Nicholas as the new VP of Analytics. The recent confirmation stems from an initiative by ASG to incorporate more data and numbers in their decision-making process. Following his confirmation, an ad hoc committee will be created to conduct surveys to facilitate quantitative research of the student body and their interests.
Senate also approved funding for B-status groups after Student Groups VP Alex Van Atta explained the application process and his committee’s efforts to recommend a total of $12,944.68 to the subsequent groups. The Student Groups committee guaranteed funding for one event per group due to the limited funds and, therefore, apportioned $681.30 to the amendment pool. While sifting through the funding proposals, senators had the option to either cut or add to the recommended amounts for the student organizations. With no amendments, B-status funding closed with ease.
“This is the first year that none of the funding recommendations have been changed, which I was really happy to see,” Van Atta said. “Usually the relationship between the student groups committee and the senate has been more antagonistic.”
Van Atta saw the lack of challenges to B-status funding today as a “good thing” and assured that this was a step to more transparency between the student government and student body.
“We did a lot of work to make sure our funding process showed equity between our student groups,” Van Atta said.
Later, senators attended to new business items such as the CTECs Working Groups, which called for the formation of three separate groups that would evaluate the use of and systemic problems with CTECs at Northwestern. ASG also presented legislation titled, “Dorm is a 4-Letter Word: Reforming Residential Senator.” This legislation hopes to redistrict campus for senate elections to solve the disproportionate number of senators that represent residential halls and colleges.
To continue the merriment of funding season, Financial VP Mackenzie Schneider conducted the final piece of new business by presenting the logistics behind A-Status funding.