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Public comments

Every other Wednesday at 7 a.m. a handful of students and other members of the public make their way to the third floor of the University Student Union to attend senate meetings for the Associated Students, Inc.

Of those handfuls of people, some address the senate during public comment. The breadth of topics during these open floor comments range from students promoting events to people expressing their concern for the manner in which the university handles certain situations.

This year, on top of a new early morning meeting time, ASI has imposed a five minute time limit for the public to address the senate. Read more

Shared governance: A series exploring public access

The Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) tabled a vote earlier this month to amend student government bylaws due to inconsistencies and the fact that the current bylaws were out of date, as The Collegian reported on Oct. 9. A majority vote was taken during the meeting while one of the senators was not present.

Student activists and organizations immediately flagged ASI for not adhering to practices outlined in the current bylaws, prompting several students to contact members of student government and university officials regarding matters of transparency and advisory for senate meetings.

Following the meeting, ASI was criticized for taking action on bylaws without a full two-thirds majority and not making their bylaws readily accessible for viewing.

At the heart of the disagreement is the balance between shared governance and the public’s ability to access information.

The Collegian sat down last week with ASI executive’s president Jessica Sweeten, vice president of finance Lauren Johnson and executive vice president Alex Andreotti as well as members of various on-campus organizations and student activists to discuss the bylaws and recent actions taken by student government.

Graduate student Hector Cerda said that he was unable to access the bylaws following the Oct.7 meeting. After the meeting Cerda went to the ASI office and requested a back copy of the bylaws but said that he was turned away.

“I was told that bylaws were not kept at the ASI office and that they were housed at the library,” Cerda said.

According to Cerda, when he went to the library to research the bylaws he was unable to find any of the back copies.

“From my understanding, it is written in the bylaws that I can go in at anytime and be able to inspect the bylaws,” Cerda said. “I also tried going online as of the most recent senate meeting and couldn’t find [the bylaws]. By not having the bylaws posted online we are being denied our rights.”

However, the ASI Web site has been under construction since the summer. The revamped Web site went live last week, according to ASI executives.

“We started this summer redesigning our Web site because we realized it wasn’t really accessible in terms of layout for students,” Andreotti said. “So we decided to revamp it, which took a lot longer than we expected because of different issues with codes and passwords.”

Andreotti said that previous versions of ASI bylaws are always on the Web site.

“Accessibility has never been a problem,” Andreotti said.

However, Andreotti acknowledged the fact that documentation was still being uploaded to the site.

Andreotti also said that students are welcome to visit the ASI office and request a copy of the bylaws or fill out a public records request if they are interested in obtaining specific documentation.

The three executives said that no students have ever been denied copies of the bylaws.

Physical copies of bylaws, however, are not kept inside of the library. At the end of the academic year, agenda packets and minutes from the biweekly senate meetings throughout the year are collected and placed in a binder. The binder is then copied and sent off to four separate places on campus for archival purposes.

Still, Cerda feels that ASI has been negligent in making bylaws available for students and that actions taken by the executives have been disreputable.

“I think that it is important that those bylaws are always made available for any student who wants to access them,” Cerda said. “It is a question of legality, because all 21,000 plus students at Fresno State are members of ASI.”

ASI delays bylaw amendment

The Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) approved a motion on Wednesday to amend the student government bylaws.

The proposal was made due to inconsistencies and the fact that the current bylaws are out of date, according to Executive Vice President Alex Andreotti.

Although the motion was approved, some amendments were not made because the senators could not reach an agreement.

One proposed amendment called for changing the number of hours prior to meetings that a senator would be notified during election times. The amendment called for making the notice three hours in advance instead of one hour.

A two-thirds majority vote was needed for the vote to pass. After an exhaustive debate of more than 40 minutes and three failed votes, some senators proposed to suspend the motion.

Senators Jamie San Andres and Luis Sanchez wanted to amend the article.

“One hour is not enough time of notification,” San Andres said. “I know some people won’t be able to attend if they only have an hour’s notice.”

San Andres said that it would be difficult for her to get the allotted time needed off of work to attend the meeting.

Senator Selena Farnesi disagreed, saying that since the meetings would be scheduled in advance, one hour is an ample amount of time to make the meeting.

But after nearly an hour of discussion and no decision reached, Farnesi suggested putting the vote on hold, in part because some senators were not at the meeting.

Andreotti agreed, saying the discussion had no end in sight and the time limit of the meeting was running low.

The motion was passed and amending the bylaws was put on hold until the next scheduled ASI meeting.

ASI votes, approves revised 09-10 budget

Due to reduced revenue from the spring semester’s closed enrollment, the Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) approved their revised budget Wednesday, a month into the semester.

The ASI budget for 2009-10 approved in April of this year had to be revised due to this summer’s announcement by the Board of Trustees, according to ASI’s vice president of finance and chief financial officer Lauren Johnson. Read more

Student apathy its own punishment

The student body at California State University, Fresno has suffered more so far this academic year than any in recent memory.

We have been forced to pay more for less, compromising our hard-earned money, our schedules, our time, even our graduation dates for a financial crisis which, while not easy to place blame on, is surely not the fault of 18 to 22-year-old college students.

Our wallets are thinner, we are taking on more and more long-term debt, and while a furlough day off seems nice, it amounts to just another way of getting less for what you pay for. Even the on-campus bar cut its hours earlier this year to save money.

The student section for tonight’s football game is sold out, and instead of offering seats in other sections at the $15 student price, the athletic department chooses to make students either sit out or pay $35 for a ticket.

And how have students reacted? With a collective yawn. An August rally to protest the budget titled “Vent at the Tent” was almost completely ignored. A town hall meeting with President Welty on Sept. 8 yielded about 50 students out of a total of more than 20,000. A protest held this Wednesday yielded somewhat better support, but in general students simply do not seem interested.

Things were not always this way. Students at Fresno State staged protest rallies and even invaded the Joyal Administration Building in reaction to events taking place in the early 1970s. The Collegian would not advocate such action, but students need to have their voices heard. We as a whole must stop being apathetic. We need to question the actions of our governing bodies. Find out when Associated Students, Inc. meetings are and what is said at them. Examine why the on-campus amphitheater has not held a concert in three years. See for yourself why the athletic department is suddenly reporting a $883,000 surplus for last year’s budget when it predicted a $1.2 million deficit in February.

Students have spoken up on issues in the recent past. When a story surfaced last fall about ASI executives consuming alcohol during a retreat it yielded several online comments and letters to the editor that expressed outrage. A few weeks later the two executives — who had been on probation — resigned from their positions.

Budgets may not have the sizzle of public scandals, but they have a much greater impact on the everyday lives of citizens. If a friend asked for several hundred dollars one would probably take the time to examine why they needed it. We should treat it no differently when the California State University system insists it has no other way to raise funds.

An informed and educated public causes frustration for governments and trustees by holding them accountable. An apathetic public causes frustration only for itself in the form of abusive policies, unnecessary taxation and simple neglect from those higher in the system who have nothing else to keep them in check.

If we can take notice of scandals and trivial stories, if we can take note of what Kanye West says about Taylor Swift and what Barack Obama says about Kanye West, then we as the students of Fresno State can surely take equal note of decisions which directly affect our wallets, our careers and our lives.

ASI reduces funding for campus clubs, encourages collaboration

The Associated Students, Inc. approved a proposal Wednesday to reduce funding for campus clubs and organizations by 50 percent in response to recent budget cuts.

Senators voted three separate times before the motion finally passed with a two-thirds majority. Although the reduction will not be put into effect until the item goes through proper channels, organizations seeking funding from ASI will now only receive up to $2,000 per academic year, as opposed to the $4,000 offered in previous years. The maximum of $6,000 for single event funding for organizations, however, was not cut.

This year, ASI is grappling with the shortfall handed down from the multi-million dollar reduction in the university budget. With a $20,000 line-item reduction and with recent enrollment figures pointing toward a reduction in tuition-based funding, ASI members say that they will have to act more fiscally conservative to meet the needs of student clubs and organizations.

“We are dealing with a much smaller pot of money this year,” said ASI vice president of finance Lauren Johnson. “We want to make sure the money benefits as many clubs as possible.”

During the two-hour meeting, opponents of the cut said it would disproportionately impact clubs who receive the bulk of their funding from ASI and limit diversity in the allocation of funding, while supporters said the reduction would aid in spreading out funds to the greatest amount of clubs.

“It is a good idea, but it is also a slap in the face for organizations we’ve funded in the past and then cut it in half the next semester — it is a huge change,” said ASI senate member Jamie San Andres. “I would rather see diversity in the allocation of funding rather than progressive cuts.”

Senator Robert Peugh disagreed saying that encouraging clubs to come together promotes diversity.

Likewise, Johnson said that reducing the amount of club funding would encourage clubs to collaborate with one another to put on single events. “We have a lot of clubs on campus with similar interests,” Johnson said.

According to Johnson, there is no particular pattern to how many organizations ask for supplemental funding each semester, except that a handful of clubs stage the same events each year.

There are more than 200 student organizations registered with the Division of Student Affairs, and of that, many applied for funding for the 2008-09 school year.

“It is first come first serve,” Johnson said. “It’s going to be really competitive this year.”

Still, some senators were concerned with how funds would be appropriated, as deep cuts to higher education have spared no expense at California State University, Fresno this semester.

“[The cuts] are not a strike against clubs, but the student body will hold us accountable if we just go over our budget,” Peugh said. “We will be no better than the government if we do, so we have to work with what we have.”

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