USG Senate hears updates and funding proposal


The Undergraduate Student Government Senate heard updates from the Political Student Assembly, Greek Sens. Chris Fong and Sanjay Mahboobani and a funding proposal for a second annual wheelchair basketball tournament at their meeting Tuesday evening in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center.

USG Vice President Jordan Fowler began the Senate meeting by mentioning that the MyUSC webpage will be undergoing updates. The outdated web page will be replaced with a mobile friendly version, and the creators are currently conducting a beta test. The new MyUSC page will be relaunched in three weeks.

“It’s going to have a totally new interface, with new features that are way more user-friendly for students,” Fowler said.

PSA director Jenny Di then spoke about the first debate between the USC College Democrats and the USC College Republicans. Roughly 70 people attended the event, and PSA elaborated on its goals to engage students during a fiery election year.

“We’ve been focusing on the election a lot this year because it is an election year. We’re trying to balance election coverage and debates along with trying to get people interested in politics, because some people aren’t interest, they’re turned off,” Di said.

Fong and Mahboobani then  provided an update on greek life. This upcoming Sunday, Fong has planned a sexual assault seminar led by Ekta Kumar, a clinical psychologist and the director of the Center for Women and Men, Sexual Assault Resource Center. The senators are expecting at least 70 attendees to turnout.

“We’re going to bring in all chapter presidents and other e-board members from the houses to discuss consent, how to party safely, how we can still have our advance but do it in a way that doesn’t get us in trouble and respects the values of [greek life],” Fong said.

After speaking with Vice President for Student Affairs Ainsley Carry about the deferred recruitment resolution, it appears the conversation came to no conclusion.

“We met with Dr. Carry the week after we proposed it to senate, and we are expecting to get a decision at the end of the semester,” Fong said. “Unfortunately we still haven’t, but we’re still having that conversation with the Academic Senate.”

Sen. Giuseppe Robalino asked the senators on the two competing resolutions; one from the Faculty Senate for deferring recruitment and other from USG Senate against the proposed changes.

“Has this created a healthy conversation? This hasn’t caused a backlash or problems or stopped it in its tracks?” Robalino asked.

Fong praised the Interfraternity Council and assured Robalino of the relatively smooth roll-out of both resolutions.

“The IFC is fighting its fight on their end and bringing their own resolutions in. They have done a good job,” Fong said.

The senate meeting ended with a senate funding request for a Wheelchair Basketball Tournament, who are planning a second tournament in 2016. The 2015 tournament was organized by Zack Wentz, a sophomore majoring in economics, and sponsored by USC Trojan Pride, in conjunction with USG University Affairs Committee and Wellness Affairs Committee to bring awareness to disability accessibility on campus. Wentz requested funds from the Senate after Trojan Pride was unable to fund the tournament for the second year. Wentz spoke about the success of the 2015 tournament as evidence for making the tournament an annual event.

“We had about eight teams last year, we raised a lot of awareness, people that had disabilities were able to participate and they brought their friends.,” Wentz said. “It was a great turnout.”