The Undergraduate Student Government senate met in the Tutor Campus Center Forum Tuesday night to inaugurate senator Diana Carpio and to pass an amendment to its office policy manual. 

During November and December, the senate met exclusively online at the suggestion of USC administrators following contentious meetings in late October, where students shared campus experiences surrounding the events of the Israel-Hamas war.

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At the beginning of December, students elected Carpio, Christian Shaw and Klarissa Palacios to the senate in a special election to replace three senators who had resigned. Shaw and Palacios were sworn in at the election results meeting, but Carpio was not present. Carpio had previously served as a legislative aide to former speaker of the senate, Emilia Bletsas.

“Being a senator for me is being more of a public-facing role and being more in itself accessible to students and [asking], ‘How I can advance their kind of initiatives or what they want to see done?’” Carpio said in an interview with the Daily Trojan.

The senate also heard a report from chief financial officer Khalil Daniels about the state of the USG funding department and funding boards. Daniels said that the Professional/Academic Research funding board was fully depleted. 

Consequently, recognized student organizations will not be able to apply for funding for professional events and academic research projects through the fund. Daniels said that RSOs are still able to request funding from other categories so long as their event meets funding guidelines.

“We definitely still encourage students to, if they can, still try to apply to the three other funding boards as well. Just because one of the [four] has been exhausted does not mean that your event still cannot be funded,” Daniels said. 

Daniels also said that the funding department had processed 65% more applications than the same time the previous year. The Professional/Academic Research funding board had provided $100,000 and 7,442 students had attended events the board had funded.

“A lot of students towards the end of the fall semester started applying for funding in the spring, which we’re definitely proud to have occurred. So that’s definitely one of the reasons why funding is exhausted,” he said.

In October, USG had closed applications for the fall semester for funding under the Professional/Academic Research Fund and the Performing and Visual Arts Fund. 

During their meeting, senators heard from newly-elected senator Palacios about her priorities and projects. Among her projects, Palacios said she wanted to work to create training for professors and teaching assistants about working with students with Office of Student Accessibility Services accommodations and to create a council for USG advocacy liaisons to collaborate.

“One of my biggest projects, or at least, issues close to my heart is accessibility on campus,” Palacios said in an interview with the Daily Trojan following the meeting. “While our University offers so much and I’m grateful for it, there’s a lot of gaps that I hope they could fill.”

Palacios went on to describe her experience with lacking accessibility features on campus due to her own disability.

The senate also unanimously passed Senate Bill 143-22, A Bill to Amend the Office Policy Manual, regarding office hours policies. The bill permanently renewed office hour reforms implemented in September under SB 143-08, which had automatically expired on Nov. 17, 2023. 

Under the reforms, certain officers will have the ability to fulfill office hours responsibilities virtually as well as in public locations. 

“Because of virtual office hours, we have more officers who are capable of completing their office hours easier,” said chief of staff David Martinez. “Some people have off-campus jobs and some people aren’t on campus until after 6 p.m., when the office is closed. So this can allow them to actually lead these office hours not in the office.”

Vice president Michelle Lu said the flexibility of the reformed system allowed USG members to meet constituents in more varied locations. 

“People were able to table and, especially senators, speak to their constituents on a biweekly basis. Other officers were just able to use that time to get to the different [cultural] centers that we have,” Lu said.

As the meeting concluded, Senator Carpio said that USG’s laundry stipend trial project will launch Thursday. The senate allocated $3,000 to the project at its Nov. 8, 2023 meeting to provide 60 students with a $50 WASH-Connect card.

“We mainly just want to see how the trial run works and see what kind of students are accessing this fund,” Carpio said.