ASPSU Senate meeting attracts a crowd

News – Vanguard

The Associated Students of Portland State senate listens to public comment at its biweekly meeting on Monday, March 6
At a March 6 meeting, the Associated Students of Portland State Senate faced a room full of students, group members and leaders expressing fear, anger or frustration with potential changes to the ASPSU constitution regarding PSU’s Organization Budget Council, a subcommittee of the Student Fee Committee that provides assistance and funding to PSU student organizations.
The OBC helps student groups and clubs with budget development, event planning, and expenditure processing. OBC has been allotted $553,633 of student funds to be distributed to student groups in the 2018 academic year.
The proposed change would give ASPSU Senate full control of student funding and recognition processes, among other significant structural changes. These changes reflect a model implemented by Associated Students of the University of Oregon.
The constitutional changes would affect more than a hundred student groups, with approximately 800 student leaders between student-operated services, Programming Boards, student organizations, and student rec clubs according to Brian Janssen, director of Student Organization Advising in Student Activities and Leadership Programs. The overall number of students within those groups is unknown at this time. Rec clubs and the Rec Clubs Council received no mention within the new constitution proposal, but most student groups are funded through OBC.
The majority of those who spoke to the senate were made aware of the proposed changes by an email from the OBC, which outlined several concerns about how this would affect its function.
“I’m just concerned about the lack of communication from ASPSU about what would be a drastic change that would impact my club, the Neuroscience Club, and other organizations funded through the OBC,” said Thomas Madison, vice president of the Neuroscience Club.
If passed in the senate, there was concern that the new constitution would be voted on without seats for ...

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