At the latest Student Senate meeting on Feb. 25, special guest Liz Keller, head of the Activities, Budget and Chartering Committee (ABCC) joined to address concerns of senators.
Major concerns students brought up at the last meeting were about the lack of information available to Ashland students concerning the allocation of funds by ABCC to different organizations and the fact that Keller is both the head of ABCC and faculty advisor of the Campus Activities Board (CAB).
“In those meetings, I am simply the historian for any of the organizations…I have no opinion on how much organizations get,” said Keller.
“There’s no advocacy or favoritism for any organization,” said Student Senate president Aidan Nayak, on Keller’s influence in ABCC.
Fellow Senate exec members Kara Crum and Sanjna Arora also attested to this.
Additionally, Freshman class president Aidan Haggard brought up a point that students should have access to specific information on the total funding for different organizations and what it is being used for.
“The math behind it is what we see, why we give them [specific organizations] … We go into every detail about how they would spend their money, what they would do. If they published that data that would cause a lot of unnecessary conflicts,” explained Sanjna Arora, senate representative of ABCC, making the point that organizations may wrongly assume they are being given an unfair amount of money even though there are careful calculations behind it.
Another point addressed at the meeting was Resolution 022425-01, which proposes extending library hours on campus. Points brought up by the resolution include the fact that library hours are limited, particularly on the weekend, and the fact that the latest night classes end at 9:15 p.m., leaving students little time to use the library before it closes at 10 p.m. on weekdays.
It also addressed the fact that students are typically required to live on campus all four years and have limited studying spaces outside of their dorms and should have more access to the library, proposing that the library stay open until 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday and at least until 11 p.m. on Sundays.
It was ultimately decided that a second reading is necessary to further consider the implications of the resolution.
A concern was also raised over the price of meal plans increasing, which Chair of Finances and Facilities Sophie Major explained is largely due to food price inflation, and little can be done at this time.
Student Senate meets Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. in the ABCD Conference Room of the Student Center. For more information on it and other campus organizations, visit Engage Ashland.
