The United Student Government (USG) held an open meeting on October 11 in the UBC room.

Two clubs presented discretionary requests at the session, including the Anime Club requesting an additional $1000 budget allotment. With these funds, the club hopes to host movie nights, create merchandise, host a Halloween cosplay/costume party, and hand out candy on Valentine’s Day and White Day to honor Japanese culture. They currently have a budget of $200 and have already spent approximately $70 of it, so they hope this request will provide them with more funds to host events.

Bard Bardelli ‘23, president of the Tabletop and History club, presented a discretionary request of $500 on behalf of the Tabletop club. The proposal was to cover additional bus expenditure fare costs that had unexpectedly increased from previous years.  The trip will take place on October 15, and Bardelli relayed that most of it has been funded out-of-pocket and reimbursed.

“Without this discretionary request, there will be more paperwork, planning, and preparation that could be put into the creation and production of different events we shall be having,” Bardelli said at the meeting.

USG will vote on the discretionary request and later inform the club of its decision.

USG is pushing its elections back by one week to have more time to prepare accurately. They are launching a new election system in the spring semester to encourage more student representatives. USG is hosting a mandatory election informational meeting on October 18 at 6:30 p.m. in Prosser for anyone interested in joining the executive board.

USG reported that the club benches for bench painting would most likely be randomly assigned, but the USG and MAC benches will most likely stay in front of the HUB.

Isabel Smith ‘23, Vice President of Clubs and Events, reported that any unclaimed benches by the submission date would be offered to other organizations, like sororities and fraternities on campus.

Club lesions reminded clubs about bench painting submissions and reported on updates from their respective clubs. The future of the Theater Club is uncertain, as Professor Christopher Shorr will be taking a sabbatical next year. The American Sign Language club was accidentally missed in the club allocation, so the club was given a $250 budget and encouraged to prepare a discretionary request if the club needed more.

Dining Services is concerned about the low activity of Late Night Dining and Kiwi Bot usage and are trying to find ways to increase student engagement with the features. Dining is working on a focus group for Kiwi Bots, specifically people that live on the North campus, and will offer reimbursement in the form of Dining Dollars or small perks.

The Academic Programing and Program Committee approved four new courses, including an International Student Seminar and Jewish Philosophy.

USG open meetings are held every Tuesday at 4:45 in the UBC room in the HUB, and all students are welcome to attend to raise concerns to the USG representatives.