While rain poured down in sheets outside, the Hamline Undergraduate Student Congress (HUSC) General Assembly meeting commenced. As students, faculty and staff got settled, Internal President Abi Grace Mart began the meeting.
Treasurer Oliver Engstrom presented that the Economic Affairs Committee (EAC) met to go through funding for student organizations in next year’s HUSC budget and had to troubleshoot to figure out why some orgs were not accounted for. EAC will be meeting again to do a final walkthrough of the budget. Engstrom also mentioned that the RFP committee, which he is on, will be meeting next week to interview the committee’s shortlist of dining service providers who placed bids to be Hamline’s next provider.
Mart and External President Travis Matthews reported that they are both working on preparing for the passing of the gavel ceremony wherein every new executive board member and next year’s HUSC presidents will be sworn in. This celebration will take place during next week’s General Assembly (GA).
Patrick Haught had minimal administrative reports and echoed what Matthews and Mart stated about preparing for the passing of the gavel.
First-year representative Anabel Bradley recapped the Meet the Reps event that she and two other first-year representatives, Anna Beaudry and Haley Huber, held last Thursday. The gathering was deemed a success, as students had the chance to bring up on-campus concerns. One of which is about securing the safety of Hamline parking lots, to which Matthews jumped in to encourage people to practice caution with parking their vehicles in the lots.
“Lock your doors, don’t store valuables in there,” Matthews said. “Do everything you can to minimize your risk of getting broken into.”
Matthews also encouraged people to register their car through Hamline so that Public Safety can notify the owner if a vehicle is broken into.
Representatives wrapped up their announcements and the new business section began. Four resolutions were on the docket to be presented and voted on.
Junior Drew Hall representative Alexandra Kretsch’s resolution on purchasing and distributing dry erase markers across classrooms and study rooms passed. Two first-year representatives, Beaudry and Bradley, proposed cementing the “Meet the Representatives” event into HUSC to be held approximately once a semester and have money allocated to fund this function, which was also passed.
Matthews then took to the podium to present his resolution proposing a new future for the Food Resource Center’s (FRC) funding, an issue that has received student concern since HUSC announced plans to cut the grant provided to the FRC through HUSC’s budget in effort to institutionalize. He proposed an $80 addition to the current student activities fee and for the project to fall under the oversight of the Office of the Dean of Students.
Mart added that, by passing this resolution, both the Board of Trustees and the University would first have to approve of this new student fee and then implement it before students see this change. Since this resolution is not monetarily tied to HUSC, every student present at GA had the right to vote. The resolution passed with no objections.
Another passing resolution was presented by senior Emely Quintero Silverio to fund the purchasing of flags, bases and poles for commencement to represent the countries that graduating students want to see at their ceremony.
Chair of the Student Organization Committee and Political Affairs Committee, Maddie Christensen then detailed a new organization charter request for a Hamline chapter of the 30×30 initiative, which according to their website is a “coalition of police leaders, researchers and professional organizations” that are leading a national initiative to increase the amount of female representation in law enforcement careers. Due to concerns with HUSC funding law enforcement recruitment on campus, HUSC’s Disability Representative June Gromis voted no. The charter request passed, meaning HUSC will now provide 30×30 with funding.
After everything wrapped up and the meeting came to a close, attendees packed up their bags and shuffled back out into the rain.
To learn more about HUSC, visit hamline.husc.edu or attend a general assembly on Tuesdays from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in GLC 100E.