Senators approve internal money request for upcoming Black History Month ’DEIS Impact event
The Senate convened for its weekly meeting on Sunday to welcome new senators and discuss two senate money requests.
The meeting began with a roll call to introduce the newly elected members of the Senate, including Massell Quad Senator Morris Nadjar ’19, Off Campus Senator Mitch Mankin ’16, Ziv Quad Senator Gwenyth Fraser ’17, Class of 2017 Senator Ryan Tracy, Class of 2016 Senator Stephanie Reifenberg and Class of 2018 Senator Cacildia Cain.
There were no clubs seeking recognition or charter, so Student Union Vice President David Herbstritt ’17 chose to go into the senate committee chair reports. Racial Minority Senator Bethlehem Seifu Belaineh ’16 discussed the Social Justice and Diversity Committee’s sponsoring of three ’DEIS Impact events, while Sustainability Committee Chair Matt Smetana ’17 discussed the committee’s plan to host a four-part video series on climate change in order to increase awareness on campus.
The Senate then discussed two senate money requests that had been previously addressed at last week’s meeting.
The first was a request by the Social Justice and Diversity Committee for $200 to sponsor one of the ’DEIS Impact events that Seifu previously mentioned.
The event will coincide with Black History Month in February and will focus on the intersection of food and black culture in the U.S. South, the Caribbean and around the world. “Eating food is a very community-building activity,” Seifu said, noting that it is an easy way to bring people together to talk about critical issues involving race and black culture.
The SMR passed with a vote of one abstention and everyone else in favor.
The second SMR, also discussed last week, was requested by the Services and Outreach Committee to sponsor a project called “Brandeis Bands Together” to sell wristbands and donate the proceeds to charitable causes.
Several senators raised questions of whether the Union can legally do this, as it is a rule that the money raised by student groups or clubs on campus must somehow come back into Brandeis rather than go to outside causes.
The Senate unanimously voted to table the SMR until next week so as to conduct more research on this issue before a vote.
Herbstritt then briefly explained the process for applying to be a committee chair before moving into senator reports.
Two new senators outlined their goals for the semester: Ziv Quad Senator Gwenyth Fraser ’17 said she wants to find some sort of landmark to tie the Ziv Quad residents together, just as Massell Quad has Massell Pond, and Off Campus Senator Mitch Mankin ’16 said he wants to continue the work of previous Off Campus Senator Sam Krystal ’17 to make sure off campus students have access to buildings.
Other initiatives brought up by senators included working with the Office of Prevention Services to create mandated bystander training for all club leaders, creating a more up-to-date list of all the University clubs, bringing together student unions from different colleges to create an inter-collegiate Union, getting more washers and dryers in laundry rooms on campus — as well as a coin machine in each laundry room — and creating a process by which people could be held accountable for excessive energy usage.
The Senate meeting concluded with executive officer reports, in which Executive Senator Paul Sindberg ’18 asked senate members to think of overarching goals for the semester.
—Rachel Sharer
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