by Carley Litten

During the last Associated Student Government (ASG) meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 8, two new bills were discussed, one with mixed opinions among the ASG Senate, and the other with a unanimous decision.

The first bill debated was a request of $1,827 to send 10 students to a “Self-Employment in the Arts” conference in Chicago, Ill. These students started a new club for business careers, focusing on the music department, two months before making the request.

With eight for and 15 against, this bill was not approved by the Senate due to the mixed outlook regarding the amount the bill requested. The bill was taken to the conference committee for further discussion, and the amount was cut to $1,539.26.

“I have a problem in this bill with the fact that really as far as their out of pocket expenses go. It takes gas to get to DIA and gas to get home, and not a whole lot else,” Senator Jacob Reimer said.

On the contrary, Senator Tzetzi Mendez felt this bill would be beneficial if passed.

“In my perspective, they are a new club; they are developing and forming their own identity right now,” Mendez said.

“I think a way to look at this is to give them a chance to bring back all of that solid business information to our community.”

Another main point brought up was that the arts tend to be overlooked. Senator Elizabeth Bierbaum expanded on this view.

“In the past, I think what people have seen come out of ASG is sponsoring club sports, which is what we are here for,” Bierbaum said. “But education, I feel like people don’t see that in the headlines, because sports tend to make it more than educational clubs here on campus.”

However, Bierbaum feels that other departments involving educational clubs are getting more recognition within ASG this year compared to the past.

The second bill discussed was regarding the MavAwards event taking place on May 6. The Director of Communications, Carly Hanley, said the essence of the event is changing entirely and being improved.

MavAwards is an event that takes place at CMU that allows for students to be nominated for different types of awards, 18 in total. President Ben Linzey described the event as being the Oscars of CMU.

The bill called for $4,288, but is subject to change if the attendance is lower than anticipated. This bill was unanimously approved by the Senate.