Due to no tables being available for the senators of Wednesday’s ASUO Senate meeting, laptops were on laps at the Gumwood Room.
Senate spent most time of the meeting on special request and approved the total amount of $20,206 for five student groups in tonight’s meeting, while the ASUO Executive presented its benchmark recommendations.  
Associated Students for Historic Preservation asked for an amount of $4,500 for three students to go to the Conference of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.
The annual conference is one of the largest historic preservation events in the nation, Associated Students for Historic Preservation speaker Brian McBeth said. Due to the lack of department funding for this year, the students have to search for alternative financial support.
Some senators expressed concerns of spending $800 per student for a three-day event.
The event will not only benefit the students’ career, but it also benefit the university with the knowledge and method to preserve historic buildings on campus McBeth and students said.
The senate voted to pass the request, with 16 in favor and 6 against.
The organization  “Men Can Stop Rape”received a $13,000 special request to establish “The Men of Strength Club” (MOST).
The group’s mission is to “create a Male-positive space to discuss sexual assault and to redefine masculinity,” its mission statement said. The program will run 22 weeks starting in Winter term, with training, supplying materials and facilitation.
The senate voted to pass the request with 21 in favor and with one abstention.
The senate also approved funding for Art Ducko, a student-run magazine that features students’ comics. Within one year of establishment, Art Ducko grew from a six-student club to a publication of 20 staff, editor-in-chief Alex Milshtein said. The publication asked for $2,031 for 1000 copies of its third issue to offset lack of funding from their department.
Net impact and Asian Culture Communication Association also got their special requests approved for their upcoming events, both of which were passed unanimously.
Senator Zach Lusby continued to press on the climate campus survey that came out last week at University Senate meeting last week. The senate needs to form a new FSL resolution, Lusby said.
ASUO Finance Director, Shawn Stevenson, presented the ASUO Executive’s Benchmark recommendations for the 2015-2016 school year.  Stevenson highlighted plans to implement a freeze for the incidental fee.
Stevenson said the Executive wants to decrease the Athletics Contracts and Finance Committee by 13.38 percent, by decreasing the Athletics budget by 37 percent. One of the solutions will consist of getting rid of PAC-12 student football tickets through the lottery system from the I-fee and having students pay individually at a negotiated price.
The ASUO Exec. plans to “defund” the Emerald Media Group’s budget, but as a beginning point for negotiations to take place.  Stevenson said that this would involve for the I-fee to no longer fund for print issues, as well as its distribution around campus. Instead, he said that the ASUO Exec. would like for the budget to fund the Emerald’s writers and reporters in the form of stipends.
Stevenson also said the Executive’s recommendations to focus on increasing the Programs Finance Committee budget to 10 percent, believing that the slow-growth model has limited rapidly expanding student organizations on campus.
Stevenson also said plans to cap an increase of the Lane Transit District to a maximum of 5 percent, the EMU Board to a maximum of 3.5 percent and a 5 percent increase ceiling for the Department Finance Committee.
Stevenson said these are initial recommendations. Executive needs to negotiate more to put these into place.
Tran Nguyen contributed to this article.