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ASG discusses sustainability, elects cabinet members

Matt Levy, Senior Staff Writer

Miami University's Associated Student Government (ASG) is busier than ever, filling out next year's Executive Cabinet while still considering new legislation.

In a four and-a-half hour-long meeting Tuesday night, ASG passed one resolution, tabled another, introduced two new pieces of legislation, voted on an emergency funding request for a new student group on campus and elected four Executive Cabinet positions.

A resolution on the eventual replacement of Miami's coal plant, located behind Peabody Hall on Western Campus, was seen as too problematic to be voted on during Tuesday's meeting. The resolution, authored by senators Carlos Suarez and Alex Shillito and by Todd Zimmer of the Beyond Coal movement, calls for Miami to begin the process of closing the plant within the next decade and pursue other greener options. Many senators felt not enough research had been put into the resolution from its authors.

"Miami wants to get rid of coal within the next 25 years," said senator Brian Breitsch, referring to the Strategic Priorities Task Force report. "The resolution says within the next decade. I think that's pushing it too far. We need to work in sync with the Strategic Priorities Task Force, not take what they're giving us and push it even further."

Suarez clarified that the resolution encourages the university to begin the process of shutting down the coal plant within the next decade, not cease operations entirely. He also suggested the staff that works there be slowly phased out or reintegrated into the campus' replacement power system.

"I can't support this because there's no education component in here, it's just bashing coal," said senator Matt Frazier. "There are other steps we can be supporting to help the university go greener over the next few years, so all we'd be doing is telling the university to spend more money."

Narmar Doyle, Secretary for Academic Affairs, felt the resolution had too many problems to pass.

"It's one of the cleanest coal plants we have in the country and I'm concerned we'd pass something that would come back to bite us," Doyle said.

The resolution was tabled for further discussion at a later point.

ASG also saw representatives from the campus group Guiding 100, a newly-formed organization which aims to help students who are interested in teaching in urban and inner-city environments. Fifteen members of the group will be traveling to programs in Detroit, Mich. and Lima, Ohio in May. Because the group was created two weeks ago, they were not able to apply for ASG funding at the beginning of the year.

Some members of ASG expressed concern that partially funding Guiding 100 would set a precedent that would lead to other organizations abusing their emergency funding privileges, but due to the special circumstances surrounding the late creation of Guiding 100, funding was allocated. They will receive 33 percent of their original funding request.

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ASG, in consecutive executive sessions voted in more members of President-elect Nick Huber's Cabinet for next year. Jonathan Wheeler will serve as secretary for Diversity Affairs, Tyler Sinclair will be secretary for Academic Affairs and Christian Trapp won the newly-created position of secretary for Alumni Affairs. Michael Trivelli made an appearance on Skype to campaign for the position of Treasurer for ASG from all the way in China and won .

ASG also passed a resolution in support of Earth Day, authored by senators Carlos Suarez, Alex Shillito and Dan Welsh. The resolution outlines that during the ASG meeting taking place Tuesday, April 19, the lights inside the room in Harrison Hall where ASG is held will be turned off and encourages students university-wide to turn their power off during Earth Week.