Associated Students Inc. Senate approved a resolution Wednesday that will require President Jose Salazar to attend California State Student Association meetings. The resolution was authored by Marvin Flores and Logan Vournas, both senators-at-large.
The CSSA, a large student organization encompassing 23 colleges, charges $2 from every CSU student in the form of a Student Involvement Representation Fund fee, unless the student opts out of the charge.
The senate determined that this fee called for greater representation at the CSSA meetings. The president will also be allowed to send a representative to the meetings.
ASI also discussed replacing the present compensation that senators receive with a scholarship, an issue that will come before the senate at a future date.
The proposed scholarship replacement would count as student aid, meaning that students would no longer be able to receive maximum student aid in addition to compensation from working on the senate. However, the current ban on senators taking on a second job would be lifted, permitting them to supplement their income with other work. It’s unknown if the dollar amount of the pay would change, as the amount presently paid is already in excess of the allocated budget, according to ASI Executive Director Richard Haller.
The scholarship would be the only way to ensure that all students, regardless of immigration status, could receive payment for their position, Haller said.
“We have to think of the moral stance of this: Is it okay for a student to have $22,000 from this and also receive an almost-$22,000 scholarship, almost make as much as a teacher?” Salazar said.
A senate resolution to create a cabinet position for a secretary of international affairs had its second reading, the last one before it’s decided on. Author Fatima Hasan expressed her hope that the position would not only be created but remain in place to represent international students and help them understand their legal status.