As the elections came to an end with shocking results, CSI’s Student Government allocated funds to bring forth new additions that will ultimately change the atmosphere on campus – although some oppose.
By Hana Abdelrehim
CSI’s student senators recently passed motions for new features throughout campus including water filtration systems, free food truck meals, and new consoles in CSI’s game room.
The proposals approved by our Student Government will soon have students and staff saying goodbye to $3.00 water bottles sold in vending machines on campus, as water filtration systems will be installed in all North and South academic buildings, making clean, drinking water accessible to everyone on campus – bottle filling stations will be available. The Student Government President, Luke Katz, motioned to allocate $25,000 into the project that was approved by the Finance Commission.
“I want to have at least one system in each building,” said Katz. “It should be something everybody will agree with.”
The motion was later approved by the senators during last week’s meeting, after the Elections Commissioner, Mariam Ibrahim, voiced her frustrations for the lack of help from her fellow senators to rally up votes for this season’s elections. According to Ibrahim, only 152 out of 10,000 CSI students voted in the election; despite her previous efforts to urge the Student Government members to contribute to the campaign and committee.
“I only had a handful of senators helping me with the election committee,” said Ibrahim. “I was so frustrated because we were so close to the election ending with less than 100 votes and the election was close to not getting certified.”
After Ibrahim demanded more participation for the upcoming Spring election, the Finance Commissioner, Adrian Rosales, announced a proposal brought forward by SG President Katz, of food trucks on campus that will distribute 150 free meals to students, on a weekly basis for the rest of this Fall semester, with about $20,000 administered to this proposal. The trucks will be set at different locations and times with the effort to distribute to as many people on campus as possible – these food trucks will be a four-week test trial for the remaining weeks of this semester to see how successful it gets among students.
However, the Student Life Commissioner, Regina Minaya, abstained from the motion and said that it would only benefit 0.01 percent of the college’s students. Minaya discussed how during the event, Spirit Week, there are about nine food trucks that give out about 250 meals, and they always sell out quickly without accommodating everyone.
Minaya continued to say that not only will a small proportion of students benefit from the food trucks, but it will take away from other events that offer free food truck meals, such as Spirit Week. But Katz argued that Spirit Week already has other features like rock climbing, whereas this will only be one food truck every week on campus reaching many people during different times of the day.
“There will be strategic timing this way it’s not hitting the same 150 students every time,” said Rosales. “It will get people moving and create activity I mean who wouldn’t want free food.”
Minaya later announced the soft re-opening of CSI’s game room located in the Campus Center, building 1C. In addition to the WII and XBOX 360 consoles, the game room will soon include a PS5, a Nintendo Switch, as well as new games such as Mario Kart. The Student Life Commission is also working to include a QR Code in the game room where students can scan and add their own recommendations of games they’d like to see.
“My biggest thing is to make other people’s things happen,” said Katz. “A lot of people here have major ideas that they think are too big when in reality they’re not.”
