Last night UPUA was all business as the assembly congregated in 302 HUB for a short (58 minute) but action-packed meeting.

During her President’s report, Courtney Lennartz stated that she attended the Blue and White Vision Seminar where the direction of Penn State’s future was discussed. During the seminar, the fact that “our in-house technology is not up to par with what’s currently out there” was brought up. I’m glad that somebody is talking about updating Penn State technology because it was immediately evident to me that Penn State was stuck in the past when I found out I had to access my emails through anything other than Gmail.

Next, Vice President Katelyn Mullen gave her report. She is working on securing a student spot on the Board of Trustees. Additionally, Mullen was selected to be on the Presidential Search and Screen committee for Penn State.

It was also announced that the Student Activity Fee Board will be held this Friday to vote on the CCSG budget proposal. Spencer Malloy (who has a seat on the SAFB with President Courtney Lennartz) outlined their basic plan of action when he told the assembly “We’re going to be voting against anything that requests money from University Park.”

Next, with an announcement that one can only describe as a “dick move” Anand Ganjam called out, by name, the three representatives that still need to sign up to staff classes. Ryan Brown, one of the three that was called out, commented that the staff classes conflicted with his work schedule. Anthony Christina who was also called out for not signing up for the classes cited Constitutional Item 3.1.3 as his reason for not signing up. I was kind of hoping that some sort of fight would break out, but then I remembered that I was at a UPUA meeting….

Last night there were two pieces of legislature that was voted on, and I can’t think of any witty commentary for either of them, so you’re just going to have to push through it:

Policy #09-07 Expansion of the Student Life Committee and the Diversity Committee

This policy did two things. First, it added athletics under the jurisdiction of the Student Life committee. Second, it changed the name of the Diversity Committee to the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. With this change the Diversity and Inclusion Committee has jurisdiction over all university issues that effect international students.

The policy passed unanimously

Policy #10-07 Expanding Business of the Assembly

This policy proposes that the category of Bill is considered a piece of legislature. Current legislature is either considered a policy or a resolution, however appropriating funds on behalf of UPUA kind of falls into a limbo where it doesn’t fit the definition of a policy or resolution. Thus the third legislative category is proposed.

This policy also changes the basic outline of the agenda for each meeting. Vice Presidential reports and Caucus Breakouts (my personal favorite time during the meetings) happen at every meeting regardless of the fact that they aren’t on the official agenda outline. However, it also proposes to add Forensic Discussion to the agenda as and “open forum for any Representative to discuss any matter of concern to the University or the Student Body.” I can only imagine that this Forensic Discussion will greatly add to the length of the meeting.  Yayy…

This resolution passes 32-1-1

I know that this wasn’t exactly an interesting report, so I have a little treat for you guys as a reward for reading (or skipping) to the end of this. It is what I am going to call a Tie War:

Tie War: Featuring Anthony Christina and John Zang

Normally I only notice John Zang’s tie.  Every week his ties outshine every other member of the assembly’s tie by so much that I stopped looking (after only two weeks) for any other contenders for the best tie. However, this week Anthony Christina pointed out his own tie to me and I was caught between my loyalty to John’s constant string of successes and the patriotism that shown in Anthony’s tie. I think that for the first time in John’s life, it was not completely clear that he was wearing the best tie in the room. It’s ok, John. We all go through rough patches in our lives. So, despite John’s pointing out that Anthony’s tie was not even made in America, Anthony Christina had the best tie of the week in my opinion. However, I’m not an expert in ties, so I’ll leave the pictures below for you all to decide on your own.

Anthony Christina’s tie:

John Zang’s tie:

It’s hard to choose my favorite part of the meeting, but that’s only because on TWO (count ‘em) TWO separate occasions Spencer Malloy said to me “’Sup homeboy.” These two occurrences were by far the greatest thing to happen to me during the meeting, despite the greeting leaving me with many unanswered questions. How do I respond? Is he calling me homeboy because he doesn’t know my actual name? Am I reading way too much into this? Yes.