ASSOU Meeting Recap 3/1/2021

Image Credit Southern Oregon University

The meeting started at 6:04 PM, with no objections to the agenda and minutes, followed by reports from the senate. Speaker of the Senate Keeley Reiners asked members of the ASSOU to walk around campus at night to see what areas of campus the darkest areas of the campus night are, as well as update their transition materials for the following ASSOU members coming in the fall. ASSOU will have an ASSOU dinner on Friday March 4th at 6:00 PM in the ASSOU lounge.

The second endemic meeting will be soon; even though the state-wide mask mandate expires in two weeks, SOU has not yet released a statement regarding mask mandates on campus. [Editor’s note: SOU’s President, Dr. Rick Bailey, has sent out an email regarding new COVID-19 guidelines] Judicial finish the section on the environment affairs committee.

Administration Director Garima Sharma had mentioned they are currently planning for the spring term and events. One of the things that is forming is a committee for a prom dance to happen, possibly in June. An award ceremony collaboration with ASSOU and student activities will happen in May.

ASSOU Vice President Mason Healy-Patterson mentioned an RHA general assembly meeting happening right after the ASSOU meeting. The pancake event is next week and is still looking for volunteers. The national conference is in late June.

For clubs, there was a club social on February 28th and hoping for club leaders to learn CPR, and on Thursday, there will be a club leader workshop and a club involvement club on April 12th. ROAP Senator Mia Santander mentioned that woman’s basketball is going to nationals. Men’s wrestling is going to nationals, and woman’s wrestling had high placing in their conferences.

The multicultural committee had its first meeting and will be having an event on May 12th. In addition, the SRC Committee announced that clubs no longer have to pay for events on campus, and SRC is looking to have classes in the rec center again. There is also still a role for a senator member of the Rec Advisor Committee.

As for old business. ASSOU got confirmation they can have a table at the Stevenson Union, however, they are still waiting for verification. ASSOU will be at the Hawk on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for two hours each day, recruiting new members of ASSOU.

There was a discussion about increasing student fees; additionally, there was a separate meeting on the student fees and how much they should increase. Due to the amount of inflation, SOU had a meeting to figure out how to handle the cost of tuition, especially with the projections of both student fee increases and lower enrollment. After looking at the numbers concluded that the student fee will need a fifteen dollar increase for student fees. The decision to increase prices was hard to make since it’s less than SOU needs to break even. They came to the fifteen-dollar increase conclusion and would have to make some budget cuts for all aspects of the school. ASSOU held a vote on whether the school should increase student fees. The motion to pass the student fee increase was four in favor, zero against, and three abstaining.

Open Forum: There was a suggestion of a climbing night with the members of ASSOU. Non-Traditional Senator Beka Kenney had said next week is open-end week and next week on March 11th is an improv show. SFC meetings will now be hybrid meetings. The adjournment of the ASSOU meeting was at 6:58 PM.

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