USC's student senate passed six pieces of legislation and confirmed two new senators at its weekly meeting on Wednesday.
One piece of legislation, introduced by William Castellow, was a resolution to honor the 100th anniversary of the University of South Carolina School of Music, recognizing its legacy of excellence and urging its highest virtues.
"This year we are celebrating School of Music's centennial. It was founded in 1924 and it's pursued a century of excellence and cultivated very high ideals and music. This year, it's marked by a special concert series," Castellow said. "We've had new works commissioned by faculty and alumni. We just had our orchestra concert with our composition faculty composing some works for that. This year is also marked by the historic Carolina Band playing in the Macy's Day Parade; that will be a very good way to showcase our school."
Castellow said many people are proud of the School of Music's accomplishments. He said the school has overcome many obstacles relating to the pandemic and online learning.
"We have a very great inclusion and equity program — and we're doing a really good job of preserving Southern music and showcasing music of Black musicians," Castellow said. "We consistently compete with other music schools, conservatories — and we have one of the most competitive audition processes in the nation."
The legislation was passed by acclamation.
Another piece of legislation, introduced by Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Camden Kaye, was a bill to amend chapter three of the Student Government codes to relax restrictions relating to international travel for tournaments.
The bill removes the international travel expense restriction for tournaments, Kaye said. Restrictions already exist within conferences — but the funding for conferences was reduced to a much lower percentage, with the $3,000 limit making it difficult to fund international events.
"It's incredibly difficult to fund events outside of the United States. I've already checked with several offices and administration to see if this was something mandated by university policy. What I found is that individuals must take extra steps within the system to ensure their ability to travel abroad, but it doesn't create additional paperwork for us," Kaye said. "When I looked into why this restriction was put in place, I found that it was simply because they didn’t want to deal with the paperwork. I think it’s a poor justification for having a rule just because of that.
The legislation was adopted.
Another piece of legislation, introduced by Chairwoman of the Sustainability Committee Mia LaPinta, was a recommendation to demonstrate student support for the university's request to fund a STARS (The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System) consultant to collect data on sustainability efforts across campus.
LaPinta said the recommendation was requested by the Office of Sustainability. It puts student support for the funding on paper.
According to the recommendation, the goal of the STARS report is to help universities understand and improve sustainability efforts. It allows for comparisons between schools, encourages continuous improvement, shares sustainability practices, and builds a stronger, more diverse sustainability community on campus.
"(STARS consultants) basically come to campus and take a bunch of statistics regarding things like energy consumption, waste and recycling, disposal tonnage," LaPinta said. "This would be going toward creating a cohesive Climate Action Plan for the University of South Carolina. However, we can't make a report if we don't have the statistics to go with the report."
The legislation was adopted.
Another piece of legislation, also introduced by Kaye, was a bill to allocate funds for student government for the fiscal year 2024-2025.
According to Kaye, the bill passed last week made changes to Chapter 3 of the Student Government Codes by creating a Student Government Undergraduate Organizational Budget. It also required that a budget for student government’s external organizations be adopted.
"This (bill) is just setting this up. It is purely to make sure we're following the codes that we've now established," Kaye said.
The legislation was adopted.
Another piece of legislation, introduced by Kaye and Vice-Chairman of the Finance Committee Jack Matthews, was a bill to amend chapter 3 of the Student Government codes to relax restrictions on allocation requests.
According to Kaye, the bill aims to address issues with the current rule requiring a 15-day period for university allocation requests, which many senators and organizations struggle to understand. It allows the Finance Committee to bypass this rule with a two-thirds vote, as a common practice for addressing such issues, to ensure organizations are not unfairly punished for missing deadlines due to confusion.
Additionally, the bill provides a one-time opportunity for the Finance Committee to revisit and fund organizations that were previously denied due to the rule, acknowledging the $40,000 in denied funding. The bill includes a sunset clause, ensuring that these temporary powers will only last for 30 days, allowing for a transition period while working on better defining and following rules moving forward. The goal is to protect organizations from being penalized unfairly while maintaining oversight and control over the process.
"Trying to strike the balance between making sure student government and the entities here have enough time to make sure these requests are as good as possible- and follow our rules- is important but making sure they get funded is also important," Kaye said.
Due to their being some opposition to the bill, the senate had to decide on the legislation by a voice vote.
Some were concerned that the bill might prompt student organizations to submit late requests, expecting the finance committee to overlook deadlines. Additionally, the two-thirds vote requirement raised questions about potential bias, as well as fairness and consistency in decision-making.
By a vote of 31 ayes to 8 nays, the legislation was adopted.
An additional piece of legislation was a recommendation to allow the finance committee to give funds to various student organizations.
Chairman of the Finance Committee William Wenzel said the finance committee reviewed $2,389.33 and approved $1,346.83.
Alpha Kappa Psi received $1,314.50 and Dawah on Campus received $32.33.
The legislation was passed by unanimous consent.
Additionally, the senate welcomed two new members during the meeting. First-year Darla Moore School of Business student Tommy Spurgeon and first-year international business student Lucas Solomon were officially inaugurated and welcomed to sit among the senate body.