Senator Maria Barun presents her projects and goals for the semester

At last week’s Undergraduate Student Government Senate meeting, chief financial officer Brian Stowe announced that a funding workshop would be held Wednesday for registered student organizations to learn about the funding department and how their organizations can get financing. The workshop, which will be the first of its kind, has been postponed to Sept. 14 due to scheduling conflicts and will be held monthly for the rest of the semester. 

Senator Maria Barun also presented the projects and goals she hopes to accomplish by the end of the semester, including establishing a better connection with students and “leaving a reasonable impact.” Senators will begin tabling at Trousdale Parkway every Monday starting next week to increase senate visibility among students. 

“Senators often are kind of disconnected from the students; they’re not necessarily representing the student body in many ways,” Barun said. “The first step that I’ve done in trying to make us more connected with students is asking the senators to step into their classes and talk to the class about ‘who I am and how they can reach out to me.’”

Barun is also working with the external affairs committee’s initiative to organize a Black History Month restaurant crawl in February hosting local Black-owned restaurants. Last Saturday, Barun and chief of external affairs Monica Rodriguez met with three restaurants in the Los Angeles area to discuss quotes and timing. The restaurant crawl will be held on campus, so students will not have to travel to the restaurants themselves.

The external affairs committee is also collecting old recreation center athletic equipment from University programs and donating them to the community. Currently, the committee is in talks with the Board of Trustees, which owns all of the old equipment.

“I think a lot of the senators’ goals are unachievable,” Barun said. “That’s why all the projects that I’m trying to focus on are ones that have started in the past but weren’t quite able to reach completion.”

Barun is also working on a partnership with USCard services to integrate student ID cards into Apple Wallet. She’s also researching how other universities have implemented policies to provide free washing machine usage, as she’s interested in bringing about a similar change at USC.

During last week’s senate meeting, president Hannah Woodworth announced USG’s progress with organizing a shuttle service between USC and Los Angeles International Airport. The shuttle will be available for all undergraduate students to sign up for through Eventbrite.

“The big obstacle we are running into right now is securing a bus vendor because it needs to be a USC-preferred vendor,” Woodworth said. “Our current goal is to have the program up and running and fully utilized by fall break.”

The shuttle will run at 30-minute intervals on a first-come-first-serve basis and will be able to take up to 50 students on each ride.

“Our current priorities are on the logistical ends,” Woodworth said. “We’re making sure that we’re marketing it and reaching the students who need it the most, which are particularly first-year and out-of-state students.”

Chief diversity officer Zaid Diaz-Arias is working with the Middle Eastern and North African Student Assembly on an advocacy initiative to expand the racial and ethnic categories on USC’s Common App to be more inclusive of their ethnic identity. There is currently a petition on change.org that has 77 signatures at the time of publication.

USG also has several upcoming programming events: MENASA will host a Henna night Thursday at 6 p.m. in the MENA lounge in the Center for Black Cultural & Student Affairs in the Student Union Building, the Latinx Student Assembly will host Welcome Back Carne Asadas on Friday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Founders’ Park and the Military Associated Student Assembly will lead a stairclimb to honor those who lost their lives on 9/11 at Cromwell Field at 9 a.m.