The Student Union Senate chartered three clubs and passed two Senate money resolutions at its Oct. 23 meeting. The Senate denied probationary status to a fourth club, Brandeis Chinese Students and Scholars Association, after an extended discussion in executive session.

Eyal Cohen ’24, “CEO” of the Brandeis Entrepreneurial and Tech club, returned to the Senate to request that they charter BETA club. Cohen said that BETA’s purpose is to create and support entrepreneurship on Brandeis’ campus by connecting students to each other and to off-campus job opportunities.

The Senate approved BETA for a probationary period at the beginning of the spring term, which is standard in the formation of new clubs. This week, the Senate chartered BETA by acclamation.

Marcus Sutton ’23, President of ’Deis Chess, returned to the Senate to ask the Senate to charter the club. ’Deis Chess, which also started its probationary period last semester, provides students with chess sets and a space for weekly chess meetings. Sutton said that the club has done events with Northeastern University’s chess club and that they plan on hosting and attending tournaments in the future. The Senate chartered ’Deis Chess by acclamation.

Keer Xu ’24 and Jenny Zhao ’24, co-presidents of the Running Club, requested that the Senate charter their club. They said that the club gives students a group of people to run with in order to make the activity more interesting. The club meets twice a week and runs a 5K at each meeting. The Senate chartered the Running Club by acclamation.

Michelle Yoh ’23 and Joey Zhang ’23 presented Brandeis Chinese Students and Scholars Association to the Senate and asked for the Senate to make it a probationary club. The CSSA is an international organization of students from China studying in other countries. Yoh said that CSSA holds cultural events for Chinese students and helps them make career connections with professionals from China.

Sen. Maxwell Lerner ’25 said that because there are already three Chinese cultural clubs on campus, chartering the CSSA would violate the Union bylaws against clubs with “duality of purpose.” The bylaws do not allow for multiple clubs with “duality of operations, impact, and appeal.”

The Senate entered executive session to discuss the club further. When the Senate voted on giving CSSA probationary status, there were seven votes in favor and 5 abstentions. Without a two-thirds majority, the club was declined probationary status. Immediately after the vote, several senators who had abstained expressed confusion at their votes acting essentially as votes against the club. A few senators asked if they could change their votes or if the Senate could vote again. Executive Sen. Nicholas Kanan ’23 said that the votes could not be changed, but that the CSSA could return next week and present again.

The Senate also voted on two SMRs relating to family weekend at the end of this week. The Senate voted by acclamation to approve the purchase of flashlights and visibility vests for the Shabbat walk to parents’ hotel rooms Friday night.

Senators also voted by acclamation to approve the purchase  of pumpkins and paints for the pumpkin fest, also on family weekend.