Members of the Student Union confirmed Executive Board appointed members and committee chair appointments at their weekly Sunday meeting. They also elected a new Community Emergency and Enhancement Fund Representative, Allocations Board Representative and Executive Senator.

The meeting started out with a vote on the confirmations of the E-Board appointed members. Junior Representative to the Board of Trustees Zosia Buse ’20, Union Officer for Diversity and Inclusion Zoe Fort ’21 and Chairperson of A-Board Aseem Kumar ’20, who won their seats in the Sept. 14 election, were all confirmed. 

E-Board Vice President Benedikt Reynolds ’19 also announced the appointments for chairpersons for all eight Union committees. 

Members voted on a number of other positions during the meeting. North Quad Senator David Hui ’22 ran unopposed and won the position of CEEF Representative. Four members ran for A-Board representative, and after candidates briefly discussed their goals for the time they would serve in the position, Vidit Dhawan ’19 won the vote. Senator for Off Campus Students Andrea Deng ’21 won against two other competitors for the position of Executive Senator. 

Much of the meeting was devoted to discussing a proposal that would make it mandatory for all clubs on campus to have a faculty adviser. According to Reynolds, this adviser would have no power or influence over how clubs are run but would serve as a resource to club members. Reynolds said that the intent of the club adviser program would be to create more continuity in clubs to make up for frequent changes in student leadership.

There was not a clear consensus on the issue. Some members pointed out that when the idea had been brought up at a town hall last semester, many student leaders were against it. Members also raised concerns that more recreational and casual clubs may not benefit from an adviser or may be unable to find a willing faculty member to advise them. 

According to Class of 2021 Senator Noah Nguyen, the Union would address this concern by matching any clubs that were struggling to find an adviser with one. Nguyen said that the presence of advisers could help new student leaders with paperwork and other procedures with which they are not yet familiar. For instance, she explained that if club leaders fail to fill out club renewal forms, they are dissolved by the E-Board, but many new students leaders are not aware of this policy. According to Nguyen, there are approximately 20 clubs this year that could be dissolved because they have not submitted their club renewal forms.