Fresno State’s Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) passed new changes for the new club grant policy and voted to provide more funds to sports clubs as long as dollars are matched by Student Affairs and Enrollment Management during their biweekly senate meeting on Nov. 6 at the University Student Union (USU). 

The senators voted for the changes to the new club grant policy during the meeting.

“The Finance Committee had decided to no longer provide a deadline for the new club grant policy, instead, it would be more beneficial for Fresno State’s clubs and organizations to be on a rolling basis,” said Kevin Prill, vice president of finance, during the meeting. 

A new club will be able to submit a one-time application for a new club grant within two calendar years of inactivity or if they have not been a prior club. 

As the meeting continued, senators also voted for the Finance Committee to withdraw $10,000 from the working capital reserve. This was the first time that the ASI senate had spoken about ‘reverse pull.’ 

The working capital reserve is money that the Finance Committee can pull out to use before the fiscal year ends. 

The $10,000 would go toward sports clubs in the spring semester due to the fact that there are 10 spring sports clubs that have not applied, and the budget has almost entirely been spoken for. 

One information item presented by Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, and Dr. Carolyn Coon, vice president of Student Affairs and dean of students, had announced the possibility of discontinuing the main university commencement and instead holding a party starting the Commencement Graduation for 2020. 

“We have some data for you,” Jiménez-Sandoval said. “The attendance for the university commencement for 2015 and 2016, 1,200 students participated. [There were] 1,019 students in 2017 and in 2018, it went down to 947 students. And last year, we made a huge push for the university commencement to make it a big deal. We had a big party [afterward] and we invested in resources, money people [and] it was only 703 [students].”

He added that Fresno State is one of two CSUs that arranges a university commencement and informed the senators and executives that it costs $20,000 to create the university ceremony. 

The data has shown that students are more interested in the smaller ceremonies for their colleges where they are recognized. 

Jiménez-Sandoval and Coon proposed that the $20,000 would instead create a university-wide party to bring all graduates together.  

Fresno State ASI will hold its next biweekly meeting on Nov. 20 at 4 p.m. in the USU.