On Sunday, the Senate convened to recognize a club and discuss student grievances over the recent changes in dining hours and locations. Due to Labor Day weekend, only seven senators attended.

The Senate began by hearing a presentation from the Entrepreneurship Club, which, according to a student representative, would serve as an incubator on campus where students could form their own startup companies and receive resources and advice from faculty and other students. The student added that while other business-oriented clubs currently exist on campus, the Entrepreneurship Club would differ because it gives students an intensive startup experience. The senators present voted unanimously to recognize the club.

Next, the Senate discussed the outgoing membership of the Brandeis chapter of the Jubilee Project, which spreads themes of social justice through film and media. The senators voted unanimously to derecognize and decharter the club, as it is no longer active.

The Senate then discussed Brandeis Global Brigades’ request to update their constitution. Senator at Large Nathan Grees ’19 pointed out that the club, a student-led health and sustainable development organization, currently has provisions in its constitution that require members to pay a fee and that allow the executive board to vote members out of the club. Grees asked if the Senate could postpone the discussion until a club member was present for discussion. The motion passed.

Student Union Vice President Paul Sindberg ’18 then announced that the Senate is looking for a Senate representative to the Allocations Board. He added that this appointment will be announced during the Student Union retreat on Sept. 10, at the same time committee chairmanships are announced.

Sindberg also told the senators that the Union is not sure what the current state of their budget is, following a cut in funding. He noted that, while the Union has $22,000 in funding for this academic year, they were also supposed to have a substantial rollover in unused funds from last year. He added that he and other officers will update the Senate as they get more information.

In executive officer reports, Executive Senator Hannah Brown ’19 and Sindberg explained that the Student Union Executive Board is currently discussing student grievances with the new dining hours and locations, in addition to continuing discussions about space allocations on campus from last year.

In individual senator reports, Brown added that, through her involvement in the Senate Dining Committee, she and other Union members have been meeting with the dining services staff to discuss the changes. She noted that the dining committee played a hand in the decision to move Dunkin’ Donuts to Upper Usdan, shifting Louis’ Deli to the sushi stand’s location and moving the sushi to the Hoot Market in the process. However, she said, the committee was not an advocate of the decision to close Lower Usdan on the weekend, though they were told that this decision came from a need to cut resources from a dining location on campus as resources were added to other locations.

Grees noted in his report that there were a number of citations issued to students for various alcohol and party-related reasons, even for students who had registered parties and were of legal drinking age.

Class of 2017 Senators Gwenyth Fraser and Ryan Tracy explained in their reports that they have been working to improve open houses between administrators and students, with a possible video series with guest speakers co-produced by Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel in the works.

Fraser also discussed the possibility of creating a “frequently asked questions” guide for graduating seniors, while Tracy added that he is interested in looking into the Club Sports duplicate clause — a policy that prevents a sports-oriented club from joining Club Sports if their sport is already a varsity sport. Sindberg noted that the issue might be more complicated, as Title IX rules about male and female sports teams might come into play.

—Abby Patkin