The Undergraduate Student Government senate unanimously approved Senate Bill 144-05, which sponsored a mural to represent the culture of South Central Los Angeles, Tuesday night. The proposed images include colorful backgrounds shifting from a dark red at the top to a bright green at the bottom, showcasing both a nature- and human-driven South Central L.A. culture.

“Currently, the greater South [Central] Los Angeles lacks strong representation on campus,” said Karen Borglund, the author of SB 144-05 and a member of USG’s External Affairs Committee. “Artwork is so integral to this community’s history, so it provides such a strong medium to display such a presentation.”

The mural does not have a permanent display space. A proposed three-to-four-week showing on the windows of Cafe Dulce at USC Village will be used to gauge interest in the permanence of the project, which will start as a mobile art piece, according to Borglund.

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Local artist Amani Holbert will be paid $2,000 for the artwork, which USG will own after the trial display. 

Senate speaker Diana Carpio applauded Borglund’s effort to get the project approved.

“It is kind of cool to see all of the different artwork and shared pieces that you see in the community — outside the USC red-brick bubble — be brought into our area as well,” Carpio said during discussion on the bill.

During the meeting, the senate also heard a presentation from Klarissa Palacios, the chair of USG’s Affordability and Basic Needs Committee, and the committee’s senators, Patrick Nguyen and Jeremiah Boisrond, going over the projects they are currently working on and their goals for the year.

Palacios said her top priority is expanding the definition of basic needs beyond affordability to give all student groups what they need. She said other goals include continuing previously successful projects, like Tommy’s Closet and JCPenney Suit Up, establishing a relationship with the University’s Office of Student Basic Needs, gaining access to their resources and reach and ensuring that the committee’s meetings are public.

The group outlined seven projects they are currently working on, including one that aims to improve the transparency of wait times when using the University’s Financial Aid Call Back service, which Nguyen partially ran his campaign on.

“One of the main issues this year was due to volume and traffic, which leads to delays for a lot of students to get answers on their phone call,” Nguyen said. “We basically made a plan to work with IT services to get a green light for moving forward with a queue system that would basically give you a better estimate of your wait time and also what queue you are in.”

Boisrond is taking the lead on a project, in its early stages, that would give students in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps priority housing on campus. The next step for the project is to gain testimonials from students to lobby for the change.

“Your living situation is your everything, and if your living situation isn’t great … it can be hard to navigate college,” Boisrond said. “So we want to provide a resource and avenue for ROTC to be able to have a space.”

Nguyen and Boisrond are also co-leading a project aimed at streamlining student access to legal resources in the L.A. area and are in contact with the Gould School of Law.

Palacios is leading four projects that will help students get information about off-campus housing, guide students through the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, ensure compliance of the Americans with Disabilities Act of all campus spaces and institute mandatory accessibility training.

Due to being blind in her left eye, mandatory accessibility training is an important initiative to Palacios.

“Basic needs, for me, means ensuring that my professors are properly educated on how to not only assist me in the classroom, but to also assist my peers [with] different abilities,” Palacios said. “[We want] to ensure that their basic needs are not only met, but [are] already provided before having to go through a Title IX process like myself.”

Mehek Mandal’s nomination as the student-at-large representative to USG’s programming fee control board was unanimously approved. USG president Bryan Fernández said he chose Mandal, a sophomore majoring in business administration, because of her commitment to helping the Funding Department and to fulfilling the community, accessibility, representation and equity platform that Fernández ran on.

In a statement displayed during the meeting, Mandal said her top priority is working toward providing transparency between Recognized Student Organizations and the University’s Funding Department.

The deadline to submit applications for unelected USG positions was extended to Friday, Fernández said at the end of the meeting.