Students may soon look forward to three fewer days of cheesy campaigning by ASG candidates during election season. At Wednesday’s Senate meeting, Communication junior Steven Monacelli proposed a bill that would reduce the current ten-day campaigning period to seven days.
The bill was in response to complaints that the recent campaign season was too lengthy and became bothersome to students.
“I just don’t think that we should be plastering campus and spamming Facebook for too long,” Monacelli said.
The 10-day period was originally instated because door-to-door campaigning took a lengthy amount of time. University Residential Life no longer allows candidates to campaign inside the dorms, and so sponsors of the bill do not believe more than a week is needed.
In other Senate News:
ASG Gives to NU Gives Back
Senate approved a request to allocate $1,000 of their project pool to NU Gives Back, a day of service in May in which more than 450 students will volunteer around Evanston and Chicago. The increase in funding brings the final cost of programming up to approximately $6,000. NU Gives Back originally planned on using the money to help cover the transportation costs to sites not accessible via public transportation. After amending the request, the money will formally go towards payment for the t-shirts that will be worn by each participant while they volunteer.
New ad-hoc committee proposed
Senators proposed the formation of a new Northwestern Curriculum Reform Committee chaired by academic committee member Ian Coley. The ad-hoc committee would merely act as a support for causes with an established student backing, such as the push for a diversity education requirement, and the revival of an Islamic Studies program. This differs from the academic committee, which contributes most of the work to a given project from its creation to its fruition. Senate will vote on the new proposal in two weeks.
Senators react to last week’s forum
Speaker of the Senate Ani Ajith called on Senate to share their thoughts on the open diversity forum hosted by ASG last week. Several senators mentioned that they were troubled by Vice President of Student Affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin's lack of involvement in the discussion. ASG Vice President Brad Stewart clarified that Telles-Irvin was told before the forum that she could present her case, but not engage in the conversation afterwards. The purpose of the agreement was to emphasize the student-led nature of the discussion, but Stewart admittedly regretted the decision Wednesday evening. While most senators agreed that the forum was a necessary space, many were disappointed by the outcome.
“Once we got down to business and tried to pass legislation, the room cleared,” said Weinberg freshman Dana Leinbach. “It was disheartening.”