After Wednesday night’s ASUO Student Senate meeting, the price for attending the Japanese Student Organization’s Sushi Night this Friday fell from $7 per person to zero.
The JSO approached the senate Wednesday, asking for $757 from surplus to pay food costs for its upcoming event.
But the senators quickly pointed out that they could not provide student incidental fee money to groups charging for their events and expecting to see profits. The JSO originally wanted any profits to go toward paying for a graduation party at the end of the year.
In addition to the surplus request, the JSO also needed to transfer $550 from within its own budget to pay for the food. The senate, however, could not do that either as long as the group was charging for the event.
After a bout of confusion, recesses and explanations to each other, the senators offered the JSO a solution: If the group didn’t charge, the senate could give it the maximum amount of money from the surplus.
The JSO accepted the suggestion, and the senate transferred $550 from within the JSO’s budget, giving the group an additional $999 from surplus.
In the other business, the Black Student Union’s request for $574 evoked memories from earlier this school year, when the senate shot down a Chinese Student and Scholar Association request. The year before, CSSA officers had bought gifts for some of the group’s members, and the senate decided that was not OK.
The BSU’s request was in part to help buy gifts for the group’s graduating students.
BSU Director Dominique BeaumontŽ argued that the senate gave the Native American Student Union money to buy blankets for the group’s graduating students. He did not see a difference between that and the BSU’s request, he said.
But Sen. Jennifer Greenough said the gifts the BSU wants to buy are the same as the CSSA’s gift purchases.
“It’s not right to have a double standard,” Greenough said. “We were brutal to that group.”
In the end, the senate granted the BSU the money it needed, with the stipulation that it pay only for the graduation ceremony speaker, and that any gifts for graduates be paid out of the group’s own fundraising account.