Association of Amherst Students

So April 28^th was the last meeting of the year. Last meetings can be fun because sometimes people swear and say things they’ll probably regret. No such luck this year. However, one thing we can always look forward to is the senate awards. Each senator gets an award based on the impression s/he has made this year. The nicer the award, the smaller the impression. Anyway, I should start at the beginning of the meeting.

And by “the beginning of the meeting,” I really mean the senator speeches which occurred before the meeting. As usual, only those students running for senate attended (to be fair, there was that one other guy… Sam, who also came). I was kind of shocked by how much BS-soaking some of the speeches had. I understand it when students who are new to the senate don’t comprehend the full workings of the senate, but I’m flabbergasted by the incumbent senators who say absurd things. For example, senators talked about increasing the transparency of the senate. Why weren’t they doing that this semester? Why are students promising things during election time when they already had this opportunity all year? Similarly, senators never make or seem to even recognize the difficult choices they have to make. They forcefully demand fiscal responsibility and student accessibility. These things are generally contradictory. The reason why the senate has to give students the run-around and why the senate asks students to go to different departments is to increase fiscal responsibility. But student organizations HATE partial funding. It’s a pain in the ass and decreases accessibility, but you have to choose: fiscal responsibility or accessibility. It’s like tequila and vodka. You can’t have both unless you want a puking mess all over the carpet. Okay, okay, it may not be as stark as that, but senators should be able to make these decisions.

Anyway troops, enough of the soapbox, let’s march onto the meeting. First, we passed discretionary and semester budgets. Scary. It was bad this semester. Like, Val scrod bad. First of all, who knew that martial arts needed two coaches (or “masters” as they’re called in the martial arts)? The senate decided that since no other sports were allowed two coaches, that the Martial Arts Club would be no different. However, the real pickle this meeting was handling two late budgets – BSU and Sailing. These are two clubs that will definitely get funding eventually. We just had to deal with whether or not we should give them funding at that meeting since they turned in their budgets late. BSU was only 5 minutes late, and while I appreciate Anneliese sticking to her guns in not letting BSU go through regular budgetary considerations because they were late, it caused major problems. So after the senate decided that we would fund Sailing and the BSU, we realized that we over-budgeted. That’s bad. Val Mexicorn Lasagna bad (okay, maybe not that bad). Although the senate wanted to give these clubs money, due to procedure, we simply did not have the flexibility the BC has to adjust the numbers. It devolved into a long proceeding full of motions and amendments and amendments on amendments. Parliamentary procedure has nothing on the AAS Senate. I don’t even remember how it turned out… I think we gave the BSU and Sailing partial funding and told them to ask us for the rest through discretionary.

Next, we revisited Josh’s counseling center resolution which the senate passed unanimously. Mike talked about the Constitutional Committee. I’m sure all of you have read our constitution and have productive ideas on how to improve it. Leave any comments below! Then (beware: self-promotion), the senate gave WAMH money to pay an awesome DJ, E-603, for its yearly party. It’s going to be sweet. Friday 10:00. Stone basement (always a good time). Do come. Finally, Josh and Dan De Zeeuw did some math showing us the price each student technically paid to go to Third Eye Blind — $60, in fact. Holy cow. We need to come up with a solution to the monetary fiasco Spring Concert is. Senators are trying to work one out, but if you got a good idea, leave a note below.

Anyway, finally we got to senate awards. Steph Gounder got the Senate award for excellent service which was well deserved. My favorite award this year was the “Pootie Tang” Award given to Peter Tang. Honorable mentions include the “Noah Webster Award for Using the Most Words Nobody has Ever Heard Of” given to none other than Chase Tanenbaum and the “We’re Only Here for Frisbee” Award given to Ronan and Paul (the only remark I remember hearing from this duo this entire semester was Paul who made some comment about the library. It was momentous).

Anyway, last thing I’ll say about this year is that the 08’ senators were fantastic and you will be missed!!

Edits: Thanks to Peter for pointing out a mistake in my entry. It has been corrected!

I guess I have met the expectations of students who think the Senate doesn’t do anything. I haven’t updated AmhPub on any of the meetings since April 14th. So, here’s an account of the meeting on April 21st:

First on the agenda, planners from Shepley Bulfinch (if you click that link, it’ll take you to their website which showcases some of their absolutely fantastic work), the architecture firm hired to give our sagging library a face lift , came in to ask the Senate about Frost. Senators raised issues including the unappealing aesthetics of Frost, the lack of 24/7 facilities, the weird metal benches on the third floor, the sense that A-Level is an “academic sweatshop”, the need for more casual, discussion areas like a café, etc. Senators would like to see Frost contain more glass to allow vistas of our beautiful campus. Many students were concerned about the dinginess and poorly-lit second, third, B level, and C level floors. I think the word “creepy” was thrown around at least 30 times. Victor said that he really liked the secret rooms he found around the library and encouraged there to be more secret rooms in the new library. The size of the desks came up again and again. What is the deal with those random compartmentalized cubicle desks on second floor (If you have any suggestions on how the new library should look or remarks on why our library sucks or doesn’t suck, please leave me a comment below and I will duly inform the library committee)?

Then, we funded the Senior Ball’s tent and other BC recommendations. As the semester winds down and as student groups hear that the Senate is flat broke, we’ve been getting fewer requests. Senior Ball got us talking about our alcohol policy. Anneliese adamantly said no to the question of if senate funds could buy alcohol. Josh (I think Josh may have been drunk to this meeting, actually, which makes sense as to why he would bring it up) wanted to have a discussion about how we could change that policy. Anneliese adamantly said no again. I love her, btw, and will sorely miss her next year.

We moved on to Josh’s other issue this week, the Counseling Resolution. You all probably know about the controversy surrounding the Counseling Center and the petition that a group of students passed around. Josh produced a resolution that would create a committee to review the Counseling Center and make further recommendations. Good work, Josh (seriously, I give Josh a lot of shit. but this was absolutely necessary).

Then we added a few surveys attached to the election last week and bought a grill. Good week, guys (April 28th was our last senate meeting and I’ll be writing a quick blog entry about that one, shortly).

Hello! My name is Selena and this is my second year as a senator. I’ll be blogging for your pleasure for the last the three senate meetings. I’d like to begin this blog by explaining the responsibilities of the Senate as I see it (the views of this blogger do not necessarily reflect those of the entire Senate, especially Josh Stein for whom misogyny is also an important Senate responsibility). Conventional wisdom contends that all the Senate does is dole out money to campus groups. This claim is only about 50% true. The senate has a considerable responsibility in allocating money from the Comprehensive Fee. Of that whooping $45,000 you may pay a year, the Senate gets 1%. While that seems like a lot of money, the senate funds things you might not think of: ACEMS, Olio, sports teams, Program Board (since you paid for Third Eye Blind, should you scalp your ticket if you don’t like ‘em? Abso-fuckin’-lutely), SoCo, all club budgets, etc. We also sit on faculty committees — like the Committee on Educational Policy, College Council — and Trustee committees. And we’re supposed to accomplish one Senate project. These projects are generally not earth-shattering but make Amherst life a little rosier. For example, the box giveaway at the end of the year is a senate project. Getting DDR in the Campus Center was a proposed Senate Project. Got a similar idea? Just talk to a senator.

So that’s what Senators do. What happens at the meetings? After roll call, the Executive Board members each says a few words. President Pan Venkatraman usually says something jolly and bubbly. VP Raj Borsellino usually passes. Anneliese reminds the Senate how poor it is. Austin complains about his thesis (congratulations for finishing!). The Judiciary Chair Mike Gutilla usually threaten Senators to complete their Senate projects. After E-Board reports, we move on to committee reports and announcements. This week, Jarad enlightened us on his fascinating meeting with Program Board. He concluded that Program Board is “easy on the eyes” (yes, it was inappropriate even by Senate standards). After announcements and committee reports, we listen to any speakers we have. This week SoCo came in to answer the Senate’s questions. They explained how SoCo is run this year and their status for next year. Considering that SoCo hasn’t been as ridiculous as in years past (mainly buying ridiculous accessories for TAPs), it wasn’t a serious inquiry. The Senate then looked at the Budgetary Committee Recommendations. Without any controversial recommendations, they passed unanimously. Without any new, or more importantly, interesting new business, the senate adjourned. This week was pretty tame, let’s hope someone throws a temper tantrum next week.