The USC student senate held their 107th weekly meeting on Wednesday night. The meeting began with the achievements of Carolina Dining being recognized for being ranked number 23 on the list “Best Colleges for Food in America" by The Daily Meal, a popular website focusing on restaurants and dining.
A group led by third-year Senator Izlen Peksenar introduced a resolution to support increasing the foreign language offerings of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures.
“We have the number one international business program in the nation which requires a foreign language minor, however, many peer universities offer a much wider variety of foreign languages,” Peksenar said.
The next bill, also sponsored by Senator Peksenar, was to allocate funds for the Student Government budget. The total budget appropriation for the 2015-2016 fiscal year is $163,428.
Another matter proposed during the meeting was to allocate funds to the Association of African American Students, Campus Advance, Carolina Trombone Association, Dance Company, Individuals Representing Identities and Sexualities, The OverReactors Improv Comedy and Army ROTC. The Senate Finance Committee proposed the bill, and it was passed.
Student Body President Jonathan Kaufman announced Freshman Council will be holding the Dating Game again this year and is planning to have a debate on freshman parking. Kaufman also made it known that there will be no Carolina Convoy this semester because there will be no away basketball games within a reasonably close distance. Kaufman asked those in attendance to upload their syllabuses in order to get the syllabus archive up and running.
The senate held an open discussion led by second-year Senator Ross Lordo on whether law school senate seats are necessary in Student Government, since the law school has its own senate. With no law school students present, the rest of the senate mostly agreed that because the law school is located on campus and money from the school goes to the University of South Carolina, it is important to allow them a seat.
Vice President Lee Goble announced that there will be an interest meeting on Thursday, Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. in Russell House room 322, and the executive interest meeting will be held at 8 p.m. in the same room.
“I encourage you to tell your friends to come. There is a direct correlation between the number of people who run and the voter turnout,” Goble said.
Goble also invited those who were upset with how homecoming turned out this year to join the Homecoming Commission in order to change the way it is run.