AS Senate Recap – 2/19/25

text by News Director

24 February, 2025

The AS Senate is a group of elected student representatives which serves as the policy-making body of Associated Students. Every Wednesday at 6:30 PM, the AS Senate convenes to pass bills and resolutions, hear reports from Boards, Committees, and Units (BCUs), and hold public forum.

KCSB’s Joyce Chi brings you a recap of their latest meeting on February 19, 2025.

 

Noah Luken of the Office of the Attorney General explains his proposals to gauge student interest in new recreational spaces.

 

Football and bowling and billiards, oh my! Last week, we told you about a proposal to bring collegiate football back to UCSB. This week, Noah Luken, a Research Associate with the Office of the Attorney General, presented ballot initiatives to gauge student interest in using AS funds to construct a bowling alley and a billiards hall. If passed, these “referenda” would be included in the Spring General Election. The resolutions introducing the referenda were tabled for a week, in order for the addition of language about the potential financial impact of each project.

    • This is not a contract that says if enough students are interested, AS will build a bowling alley and billiards hall. Luken reiterated that the only goal of the referenda was to see if students would support such projects in the future. Still, some Senators were hesitant, like Senator Aryaman Singh: “If a student is hungry is going hungry, I don’t think the first thing on their mind is ‘God, I really wish we had a billiards hall.’”
    • Why a bowling alley and billiards hall? Luken told us there “wasn’t anything super special that led to it,” but he noted that Attorney General Eric Carlson has encouraged his staff “to be creative.” 
    • Luken said that referenda in general “are incredibly useful tools in a democracy” so that elected officials like the Senate can understand what their constituents want. “The hope is that this would spur future referenda proposals for future election ballots, to make this a more robust, democratic institution.”

 

Three campus organizations have been recognized with the Outstanding BCU Award. Members of the winning Boards, Commissions, and Units (BCUs) will see their honoraria increased 100% as a reward. The Commission on Student Well-Being (COSWB) was honored in the Student Well-Being subcategory, Global Gaucho Commission (GGC) in the Professional and Academic Development subcategory, and Trans and Queer Commission (TQCOMM) in the Representation to Marginalized Communities subcategory.

    • According to the report, three groups applied for the Student Well-Being category, while the other two categories only had one applicant each. The report says they will boost outreach, like by putting up more posters in high-traffic areas and considering allowing one BCU to apply for multiple categories.

 

 

The Senate passed the following pieces of legislation:

A Resolution to Propose an Increase to the Lock-in Fee for the A.S Global Gaucho Commission (Yu – Ganesh)

  • The Global Gaucho Commission (GGC) is a community hub for international students. Like many other campus organizations (including KCSB), the GGC relies on lock-in fees for funding, and you – the students! – vote on these lock-in fees during the Spring General Election. This resolution allows the GGC to request the student body to increase their lock-in fee, from 99¢ to $2.49 each Fall, Winter, and Spring Quarter and 99¢ for each summer quarter.
  • Here’s something interesting (well, at least I think it’s interesting). The GGC’s ballot language would say that any leftover funds, or “rollover,” would get sent back to the Senate Unallocated fund to be distributed among other AS entities. Rollover has been a contentious topic in recent times, and many Senators have said that minimizing rollover is a priority.

A Resolution To Establish A Sexual Assault Awareness Ad-Hoc Committee (Elkhatib – Kadah)

  • This resolution establishes a Senate committee that’ll be in communication with organizations like Campus Advocacy, Resources, and Education (CARE) and Take Back the Night, “with the primary goal of increasing collaboration and connection.”

 

The Senate tabled the following pieces of legislation for one week:

A Bill to Create a Mental Health First Aid Subcommittee Under Commission on Student Well-being Legal Code (Lala – Ganesh)

  • This bill would establish a Mental Health First Aid subcommittee under COSWB and the Public and Mental Health Commission (PMHC) to codify the joint Mental Health First Aid trainings they’ve already been hosting.

Civil Society Project (Lala – Iden)

  • This resolution “create[s] civil service goals for the Association to achieve for their peers.” Some of the ten goals include combating fentanyl overdoses, restocking buildings with menstrual products and condoms, and improving cliff safety. Plus, there’s a push to pilot “Rate My Landlord” for housing accountability. Senator Enri Lala said the proposed $40,000 in funding would be given to people or groups “preferably outside of the Association, so that they can bring in fresh expertise and not the things we’ve discussed in here ad nauseam.”

A Resolution to Introduce a Referendum for a Future A.S. Billiard Hall (Iden – Lala)

  • This resolution would include a ballot initiative in next quarter’s elections to gauge student interest in using AS funds to introduce a billiards hall.

A Resolution to Introduce a Referendum for a Future A.S. Bowling Alley (Iden – Lala)

  • This resolution would include a ballot initiative in next quarter’s elections to gauge student interest in using AS funds to create a bowling alley.

Access this week’s AS Senate agenda (which includes their bills and resolutions) using your student email here. You can see last week’s agenda here. Meetings are typically held each week at the Flying A Room of the University Center (Main Floor) throughout the quarter, aside from Week 10. You can also watch live and past meetings on Facebook here.

Posted in News, AS Senate