Last night’s UPUA meeting was short and sweet. They confirmed three new executive board members, were able to successfully vote in their budget for the coming academic year without very much debate, and also passed some questionable legislation.

Melissa Lourie, former vice president of the Association of Residence Hall Students, was up for confirmation as the Director of Encampment. Encampment is a conference of student leaders that’s held every fall semester, but Lourie wants to go in a new direction in the coming year, planning to hold encampment once a semester. She was confirmed by a vote of 27-1-0.

Tori Spallina was elected by the student conduct advisors to serve in the role of their Director, but she still had to go through the confirmation process to officially take on the position. Spallina stressed that she hopes to initiate programs that will help prevent students from getting in trouble, as opposed to just helping them after the fact. She was confirmed by a vote of 27-1-0.

Anand Ganjam, a freshman business major, was up for confirmation as the Director of Subsidized Test Prep. He discussed initiatives to better market the test prep courses to students, as he felt that previous lack of usage wasn’t a matter of students not being interest, but a matter of them simply not knowing the test prep was available. There was some controversy regarding his admittance that he would run for an assembly position if one opened up, but he was confirmed nonetheless by a vote of 26-4-0. “I think Anand is in danger of being very good in this role,” said Elias Warren. Not quite sure what that means.

All of the new executive board members were sworn in along with IST Representative Mary Lieb and Eberly College of Science representaitve Brandon Botzer. And then came the moment we were all waiting for, the budget debate. It was fairly anti-climactic, as a few questions and queries from assembly members were easily clarified and nobody seemed to have any real issue with the budget. The budget passed with a vote of 30-2-0, with Anthony Christina and Brandon Botzer as the two lone dissenters. Christina had voiced his disdain for certain staff wages at the Tuesday night ID meeting, stating that he has a “deep philosophical issue with paying people to get involved in student government.”

Next came the legislation, Resolution 01-07 Support of Movin’ On Concert Series. This resolution explains that because UPUA contributed $16,950 towards the concert series, they should do their best to promote the event to students as well by hosting an ice cream giveaway on the HUB patio to attract attention for Movin’ On flyers that will be distributed. The idea behind the event is that students will actually read the flyers if they get a cup of ice cream with them; apparently brought in thousands of students last year, but I can’t help but picture a line of twenty-five fat kids and Creamery fanatics that just go through the line over and over again to get their ice cream fix for the day.

During committee reports, Student Life Chair Justin Laskowski discussed a UPUA promotional video being produced that will detail who they are and what they’re about. During executive board reports, John Zang reminded everyone that there are still executive board positions available. Press Secretary Kevin Horne again asked that assembly members get on Twitter, but was pleased to say that there are only three remaining members that have not joined the social network. On the other hand, Horne wasn’t too pleased that one member doesn’t follow the UPUA Twitter account and 19 don’t like the Facebook page. Vinnie Lizza, Director of External Affairs, discussed a philanthropy project that they’re working on in which students will submit a donation and a picture in honor of Joe Paterno. The donations will go to the charity of the Paterno family’s choice and the pictures will form a Joe Paterno mural.

Elias Warren Quote of the Week: “What are you going to do Saturday night? Not get incapacitated, you are going to go to the Glee Club concert at Schwab… Hopefully, I’ll see at least one of you there.”