Miami University's Associated Student Government (ASG) had plenty to address in their weekly meeting Tuesday night.
Enrico Blasi, head coach of Miami's men's hockey team, stopped by to thank student senate for its support in the past and ask for their continued support when this season starts. He stressed the importance of students at Miami's hockey games.
"We've never turned a student away. We don't want to turn students away," Blasi said. "We play in a tough league, and in two years, we're going to be playing in probably the premiere league of college hockey. It's going to get tougher and we're going to need support from the student body."
To that end, Blasi encouraged senators to get the message out to their constituents that their presence is welcomed at every hockey game.
"Right now we're averaging 1,300 or 1,400 (student attendees) per game," Blasi said. "Let's get that up to 2,000 so when Michigan comes to into town, they don't have a shot at beating the RedHawks."
Blasi's comments were met with vocal support from student senators.
Blasi took time to answer a few questions before he left. Responding to one question which asked what his favorite fan cheers are, he confessed he is usually too caught up in coaching the game to be able to hear much of the chants. He said he does enjoy hearing House of Pain's "Jump Around," particularly whenever Miami has a large lead over its opponent.
Blasi also said he appreciates the vocal atmosphere that comes with Miami hockey games.
"(Students) need to show up early. When the visiting team comes out for warm-up and it's a full crowd and a player scores on the visiting goalie and everyone boos him and makes chants about him, it's rattling. (The team) doesn't know what to do. It's awesome," Blasi said. "We want as many students there as possible to intimidate the other team. We don't let them win in our house."
The meeting continued with the passage of student organization funding. According to Student Senate President Tom Kirkham, student organization funding is one of the most important aspects of student government.
According to Vice President of Student Organizations Meghan Wadsworth, some organizations lost their chances at funding because they missed important meetings or failed to register on The Hub, Miami's online student organization Web site.
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"They're not technically organizations right now, so we can't fund them," Wadsworth said.
The next cycle of student government funding will occur in January.
In an unusual move, ASG went into an executive session to vote on the issue, meaning ASG's entire cabinet, the media and any non-senator guests were forced to leave the room while discussion and voting took place. According to one senator, this was an oversight due to new senators' inexperience with properly initiating voting procedure.
ASG also passed a pair of resolutions extending thanks to the university library system. According to Nick Miller, secretary to the executive cabinet and one of the co-authors of the bill, King Library restored its 24/7 open hours based on legislation ASG passed last spring.
"They were able to accommodate us based on what we wanted, so we need to thank them," Miller said.
ASG also introduced a new piece of legislation outlining an amendment to its by-laws that would improve the efficiency of the ASG Oversight Committee. However, since one of its authors was not present to clarify what some senators felt was ambiguous wording, the bill was tabled until the next meeting.
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