The Undergraduate Student Government senate approved a bill Tuesday night amending the weekly senate meeting rules.

Senate bill 146-03, which passed unanimously, requires senate meeting agendas to be fixed and published by Friday at 5 p.m. Prior to Tuesday, senate agendas were required to be fixed and published no later than 5 p.m., two business days before the scheduled meeting time.

Senator Zehran Muqtadir — who authored the bill — proposed adding language qualifying business days as University-recognized holidays and excluding weekends. Muqtadir said he “welcomed any procedural amendments” to ensure senate agendas are published at 5 p.m. on Fridays.

Speaker of the senate Madison Troup moved to amend Muqtadir’s bill to shift language to more clearly indicate that University-recognized holidays and weekends qualify as business days. Troup’s amendment also replaced “two business days before” with 98 hours before the meeting.

Muqtadir, who supported Troup’s motion, said this was to avoid confusion over how to define business days.

“So the only difference between [the original bill and Troup’s motion] is that it can get nitty-gritty when we are defining business days only in this particular part of the senate meeting rules,” Muqtadir said. “To set the standard, it is going to be 98 hours before the senate meeting, which is 5 p.m. on Friday.”

During reports of officers and directors, chief of staff Shrinidhi Sriram highlighted USG receiving a total of 211 applications during its recruitment process.

“That is a huge testament to our officers going out there [and] really speaking to people at the involvement fair, tabling [and] getting to know people,” Sriram said. “I am really excited to welcome new officers and onboard them and make sure that they feel like they can belong in this wonderful community.”

Sriram also discussed the USG retreat, which took place over the summer and included various USG officers.

“We did one of my favorite activities … It was proposed by our chief programming officer Sage Murthy; it is the pluses and deltas, where we really focused on the plus points of USG and USC, as well as things that need change in USG and USC more broadly,” Sriram said. “This was just a way for senators, chairs [and] anyone in programming assemblies to get an idea of what they want to work on in the school year.”

Additionally, Sriram said that USG officers from multiple departments were able to collaborate on project ideas for the upcoming school year.

In his first presentation of the semester, senator Kevin Hoang said he was able to accomplish several projects last semester, including adding mobile app wait times at Ronald Tutor Campus Center, monthly accessibility tabling and advocating for a financial aid student worker.

“Our work matters, which is very important to me,” Hoang said.

Hoang also announced his intentions to work on a new project, called “Networking November,” which will aim to connect students with career resources, opportunities and professionals.

Along with this project, Hoang said he wants to further focus on professional development by connecting
underclassmen with internship opportunities by hosting panels with professionals and upperclassmen students with internship experience.

“The goal of [‘Networking November’] is to highlight USG as a place for professional development and professional opportunities during a time when career opportunities, especially in non-business, non-finance areas, are really ramping up,” Hoang said.