On Sept. 4, Erin Shaffer, speaker pro tempore and senator of the College of Liberal Arts, filed a charge against the ASUN Internship program based on the violation of the Statutes of the Associated Students.
The judicial hearing occurred on Sept. 11 and Brayden Taeubel, the chief justice of the judicial branch reported the results decided on Sept. 15 at the Sept. 20 ASUN senate meeting.
“Senator Shaffer filed this charge accusing officers within the ASUN executive branch who are responsible for marketing the ASUN internship program of disregarding the necessary procedures and changing the title of the ASUN internship program, prior to the distribution of the marketing materials,” Taeubel said.
In this case, the ASUN internship program was charged with “falsely marketing” the ASUN internship program under the title of “ASUN WolfPack Partnership program.”
“While disregarding the necessary procedures that are required to change the name formally, the title was then used for marketing material over the span of several months,” Taeubel continued.
According to the ASUN financial records acquired by The Nevada Sagebrush, $207.50 was spent in total on all of the marketing initiatives including poster printing and employee payment for the “WolfPack Partnership” instead of the ASUN Internship Program.
“ASUN judicial council unanimously finds the ASUN internship program guilty of the accused violation and orders the immediate injunction of the ASUN internship program to change the title of ASUN wolfpack partnership that was used in any promotional material back to its original title, ASUN internship program.”
The injunction also requires all officers in charge of marketing only refer to the internship program as its original title unless the name is formally changed.
“The council finds that the disregard of the necessary procedures of the executive branch and the complacency of the misuse over the span of several months is call for concern, regarding the duty of oaths of officers in ASUN that collectively disregarded the necessary procedures and who used the incorrect title on their own behalf,” Taeubel said.
The ASUN officers are allowed to refer to their personal interns with synonymous titles to internship, but they cannot market the internship program as a partnership.
A Resolution in Support of the Creation of Tagalog Classes at UNR passed
A Resolution in Support of the Creation of Tagalog Classes at UNR was submitted by Shaffer and Leaf Acklin, on the inspiration of Gavin Fisher, the president of the Filipino Culture and Language Club.
According to the resolution, Tagalog is a language that originated in the Philippine Islands with more than 24 million people who speak the language worldwide.
The students of the FCLC believe it will be beneficial to implement Tagalog classes to be created and offered in the fall 2024 semester. Shaffer reported the goal of this piece is to showcase ASUN supports this piece to bring Tagalog classes to UNR.
The FCLC did research and surveyed 21 students of the Filipino culture whether they would or would not take the classes if offered and 70 percent of those students responded they would “absolutely” take the courses, 30 percent stated they would take it if “their schedules aligned”, and 0 percent said they were “not interested.”
Joel Martin, the senator of the College of Liberal Arts presented some concern over needing more students to survey, so the club can have a greater number of students showing they want to take the Tagalog classes. Martin said since the university has a minimum requirement of students per professors in classes, they should have enough students in the survey saying “yes” to wanting to take the language classes, before they take the idea to the Nevada System of Higher Education’s Board of Regents.
Shaffer reiterates that she agrees there needs to be more of a survey done before the FCLC takes it to the NSHE board, but that this piece generally centers around the table just supporting their cause when they do decide to present it.
The FCLC plans to present their research and goals to the NSHE board of regents, sometime in the next six months with the support of faculty.
ASUN senators voted unanimously on this piece and the resolution passed.
Executive branch attempts to “lighten the mood”
During the officer reports, Boris Guerra, the president of the ASUN told the table that the executive branch wanted to “lighten things up,” so each of the officers from the board told a joke at the end of their reports, with a grand total of 11 by the end.
“Why did the mermaid wear seashells?” Guerra asked. “Because she grew out of her B-shells.”
The spectators of the meetings had plenty of giggles, but there was less of an outburst when Stacen Suzuki, director of executive outreach at ASUN told his joke: “When does a joke become a dad joke? … When it leaves and never comes back.”
Jaedyn Young can be reached at jaedynyoung@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @jaedyn_young3.
