The student senate saw one bill on Wednesday relating to the ever-busy Sustainability Council.

The council was approved for $2,660 in funding from the Mesa fund to bring Tres, an artist collective in Mexico City, to campus. While here, the three artists will be putting on a week-long “Resignify” workshop, which will help students generate a definition of garbage and then suggest and develop better, alternative ways to deal with it.

There was some apprehension to pass the bill, since it was depleting 68 percent of the Mesa fund, but President Ariel Diamond assured the senate that there was plenty of money in reserves for the account.

“The IRS told us we had too much money in the reserves ($73,000),” Diamond said. “So last year Telbe [Storbeck] and I reduced the Environmental Fee to defund the account.”

Since the fund had such a large reserve, it did not need as large of contributions of student fees to exist.

“We wanted to see the need for this account for when the biennial [budget] comes up again,” Diamond said.

Resignify will include four 2.5 hour workshop sessions with at least 20 students each, and the artists will also travel around the Valley looking at waste management practices and meeting with community members.

“They have a scientific approach that appeals to me as well as students,” senator and Sustainability Council member Amanda Stahlke said.
Tres charged UCCS $25,000 to do a similar program at their school, but they agreed to come to CMU for only $3,000.

“We got it down from $25,000 to $3,000,” Stahlke said, “because they saw Grand Junction as a growing area and a unique place for them to really make a difference.”

The money from the Mesa fund is to pay for plane tickets and a motel room. Sustainability Council is relying on its own fundraising as well as community outreach to pay for the event.

tfife@mavs.coloradomesa.edu