Last night in 302 HUB, the University Park Undergraduate Association held their second General Assembly meeting of the Fall semester.

President Christian Ragland spoke about several recent and upcoming events, including the Lion Walk, a sexual assault awareness walk on September 17^th, and Campus Night Out on the 30^th. Ragland also touched on other initiatives, including an upcoming budget meeting with President Spanier on September 29^th, a meeting with the Princeton Review to discuss subsidized graduate school testing, as well as his hopes to start a weekly radio address on the LION.

Legislation to create “Freshfest,” was the cause of some debate, an event that representatives Ali Cook and Colleen Cannon hope will increase UPUA’s visibility to the new freshman class by luring freshmen to the quads in East with free food and music. Not all assembly members were happy with the plans to have the event next Wednesday, September 8, citing concerns about the lack of time to prepare for such a large event, to concerns over conflicts with the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and the Muslim Ramadan, as well as amendments to the food budget for the event.

When asked for comment, Curtis Houck (freshman-Political Science) expressed his support for the program;

“If students chose not to get involved, that’s fine, but I think it’s important that UPUA gets their name out there. Many freshman don’t know about UPUA or the role that they play on campus.”

In addition to approving “Fresh Fest”, the assembly passed legislation supporting programs in conjunction with the Office of Undergraduate Education. The program will support the display of blackboards around campus, encouraging student to write comments and responses to small, constitutionally controversial prompts. The event will take place September 17^th.