ASG allocates student org funding, passes four bills

Miami University’s Associated Student Government (ASG) approved its second round of student organization funding for the semester at its March 16 meeting.

This round, ASG allocated more than $61,000 in funding to 44 different organizations. This was about $6,000 less than last round’s allocations.

Student organizations have one more opportunity to request funding before the end of the academic year. ASG still has more than $500,000 in available funds.

Later in the meeting, ASG passed four bills.

The first bill, authored by Off-Campus Senators Omar Elghazawi and Ian Chenkus, abolished the cabinet position of Secretary for Advancement and Alumni Affairs.

The position is currently vacant because Adam Weiss, who most recently held it, resigned on Feb. 19.

According to the resolution, the rationale for getting rid of the position was that it “does not directly serve the student body,” but is still a paid cabinet position. To save money, the bill would transfer the position’s duties to the Student Body Vice President (VP).

Outgoing VP Jessica von Zastrow sponsored the bill and said she had also spoken to the two VPs before her, Dante Rossi and Vincent Smith, who were both supportive of the bill.

Trey Petrella, secretary for on-campus affairs, said he favored the bill because he didn’t feel the three people who held the position during his time in ASG did much on behalf of the student body.

“I have seen three different secretaries [for Advancement and Alumni Affairs] come across in my years,” Petrella said, “and I have been unimpressed with all three.”

Brandon Small, secretary for diversity and inclusion, agreed with Petrella’s comments but said ASG itself was partially at fault for the position’s ineffectiveness.

“It is our responsibility as ASG to elect people who are going to effectively innovate and reimagine their positions in a way that is productive for the student body,” Small said. “So it could be argued that it is a failure on us for not taking the most qualified candidates.”

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The bill passed with 35 approvals and two denials.

The second bill, also authored by Elghazawi, would put the Secretary for Communications and Media Relations in charge of managing the Student Success Fund.

The Student Success Fund is a scholarship that students can request to help cover costs such as student organization fees and textbook costs. The fund was previously managed by the Chief of Staff.

The bill passed unanimously.

The third bill, authored by Resident Assistant Senator Cameron Bracely, Off-Campus Senator Becca Pallant and On-Campus Senator Ethan Stack, added the Student Dining Hall Advisory Committee to the committee listing in ASG’s bylaws.

That bill also passed unanimously.

The final bill, authored by Parliamentarian Evan Gates, Senator-at-Large Eli Davies and Off-Campus Senator Jake Kravitz, increased the accessibility of ASG’s standing rules.

According to the bill, the standing rules were not fully accessible to those with visual impairments and learning disabilities because of a lack of a table of contents, inadequate line spacing, overly-formal language and other factors.

The bill fixed many of these issues by changing the font, increasing the line spacing, adding a document outline and changing some of the phrasing in the standing rules.

The bill passed unanimously.

ASG’s next meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 23 at 6 p.m.

@madphabes

phabymr@miamioh.edu