The discussion of combining the position of director of external and director of communication while also combining director of finance and fee allocation committee chair occurred during the CMU Associated Student Government’s meeting on Wednesday.
ASG President Ben Linzey cited cuts to the budget as reasoning behind the combination of the positions. The senate is hoping to cut a total of $16,000 from its budget.
Another way the senate is reducing the budget is by decreasing office hours and pay for the new positions as well as student leader and chief of staff.
“Beforehand more than 50 percent of our budget was being utilized for stipend pay, Linzey said. “So we were finding ways to cut the budget because it was a tighter year than past years.”
On the other side, ASG president and vice president would have increased office hours without any increase in pay. In the proposal, each position would need to have five more hours a week compared to past semesters. The president would have 20 hours per week, while the vice president would have 15 hours per week.
Also discussed in the meeting was the joint resolution written by ASG Vice President Jake Carmin. The measure stated that if a CMU organization offers a service that another group needs, the group needs to contact the student organization before contacting an outside party.
“This [resolution] allows us to be more fiscally responsible with our expenditures, but to better collaborate with students on our campus,” Linzey said.
The measure received almost unanimous support and will go in effect in the fall of 2017.
The senate also discussed the three new medical programs coming to CMU: physician assistants, occupational and physical therapy. Originally, the programs were going to be with a partnership the University of Colorado-Boulder, which would have been a similar partnership that the CMU’s engineering program has with CU.
However, ASG decided discontinue the the three medical programs partnership with CU. Now the programs will have an earlier accreditation period. The PA program will start in the spring of 2019 and the PT and OT programs will start a year and a half later.
“We are very excited for those programs to grow,” Linzey said.
Students can also receive their master’s and doctorate’s at CMU. The classes will be more expensive though as the current estimate for a credit is roughly $600, but the price may change.
If students are interested in job openings for next semester they can email Linzey at [email protected]. ASG will meet again on Wednesday, April 26.
