As students settle back into normal class routines, senators of the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico held their first round of committee meetings for the Spring 2019 semester.
Before the meeting, Vice President Emily Wilks appointed new leaders to ASUNM’s three committees. Sen. Holly Gallegos was appointed chair the Finance Committee, Sen. Mohammed Assad to the Steering & Rules Committee and Sen. Emerald Goranson to chair the Outreach & Appointments Committee.
The three committees also individually elected Vice Chairs on Wednesday night. Sen. Sara Al-Midany was elected as Finance Vice Chair; Elijah Jaffe was elected as Steering & Rules Vice Chair; Kristin Woodworth was elected to Vice Chair of Outreach & Appointments.
Jaffe and Woodworth are both first-term Senators. This is Al-Midany’s fourth semester with ASUNM, according to Sen. Jacob Silva, who nominated Al-Midany.
Upcoming Legislation and Appropriations
The first piece of legislation of the spring semester seeks to clean up and create a unified style to the definitions code of the ASUNM Lawbook, according to ASUNM Attorney General Emily Hartshorn.
“It wasn’t completely in alphabetical order, some of the letters weren’t capitalized and then some of the definitions were outdated or just needed to be changed,” Hartshorn said.
The Finance Committee also approved four appropriations.
Honor’s Student Association (HSA) was approved for $1,312 to cover costs of attending a Western Regional Honor’s College conference in Montana, along with a trip to Yellowstone National Park, according to interim-President of HSA and ASUNM Joint Council Representative Victoria Knight.
LoboTHON was approved for $3,139 for costs associated with the groups yearly dance marathon and travel fees for a conference. LoboTHON is a student organisation that raises money for the UNM Children Hospital.
Women’s Ultimate Frisbee was approved for about $3,800 to cover what the team’s representatives said were tournament entry fees, an honorarium (one time payment to a non-student associated with the group, in this case the teams coach) and some food costs over the semester.
Men's Ultimate Frisbee was approved for $5,041 for tournament costs.
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The four approved appropriations are set to be voted on in full senate Jan. 23.
Appointments for Libertie Green as Executive Director of Governmental Affair and Jacqueline Hoswell as Assistant Executive Director were also approved to go before full senate next Wednesday.
Early in the Steering & Rules meeting, Hartshorn voiced support for the oxford comma, a piece of grammar strictly forbidden by the editors of the Daily Lobo per the AP Stylebook.
Justin Garcia is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers ASUNM. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com and on Twitter at @Just516garc.
