The Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) senate passed a resolution on Wednesday to plant an olive tree in the Fresno State Peace Garden.
ASI President Camalah Saleh said the idea was initially brought up by the Students for Palestinian Liberation over a year ago, but it kept getting delayed.
“My goal with this resolution was to show that the official student government and the official student voice also support funding it,” Saleh said to The Collegian.
In Palestine, olive trees are a deeply symbolic representation of peace and unity. On average, olive trees live for 300-600 years, though there are recorded cases of ones that have lived much longer.
Saleh said the resolution still has to go through the stages of approval before it’s officially in motion, but she has been in contact with campus leaders throughout the process.
“The goal is, really, to show that ASI supports the planning of the olive tree, so it’s not just one group of people wanting it, but it’s the community also,” Saleh said.
Other business
ASI also voted to increase the monthly stipend for ASI senators and executives in a proposal brought by Saleh and Nellie Chobanyan, senator for parking and transportation.
Effective next year, the adjusted stipends will look like the following:
- Senators will go from a $500 stipend per month to $680.
- The ASI president will go from $1,050 to $1,450.
- The vice presidents’ stipends will go from $1,000 to $1,360.
In total, the senator’s stipends will be raised by $19,440, and the executives’ by $17,760.
Chobanyan said that the decision comes after years of stagnant stipends, with executive stipends remaining unchanged for 13 years.
“California minimum wage has increased by almost 13%, which isn’t reflected in our current stipend,” Chobanyan said.
Saleh said it is important for ASI to remain competitive in its pay, and that no student-centered budget allocations will be adjusted to fund these increases.
Alya Hassan, senator for the College of Health and Human Services, requested $8,000 to fund the renovation of the lounge in the professional human services building on campus.
“It’s going to cost about $15,000, a little bit over that, and I’ve worked with the dean to get her to match half of that,” Hassan said.
The renovation will entail buying new, commercial-grade furniture for the lounge.
“[The renovation] will last us another, hopefully not 20 years, but we’re gonna go for 10,” Hassan said.
The motion passed unanimously.
Building off the 24/7 finals week hours from last semester, Saleh requested $5,000 to extend the library hours until 2 a.m. and provide snacks for this semester.
This time, the entire library will remain open.
“We kind of revisited the 24/7 finals week proposal that was passed in the initiative … and it was really successful,” Saleh said.
She said that they noticed the number of students dwindled between 2 and 5 a.m., so they adjusted the hours.
ASI also heard presentations from Raymond Hall, chair of the Academic Senate, and Bao Johri, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer at Fresno State.
During Hall’s presentation, Senator for Research and Innovations Cody Jarvis suggested that members of ASI and the Academic Senate visit each other’s meetings and work on a joint resolution.
“Not only do students need faculty, faculty need students on some things,” Jarvis said.
Hall said he liked the idea.
Johri gave an overview of AssistVisor, an AI-generated resource that is available on select university websites. The tool is in collaboration with Services for Students with Disabilities, and it summarizes web pages/reads them aloud.
“It’s actually an AI technology that we’re building right now, and we thought that we’d do it in phases to give people the ability to try it and give us feedback,” Johri said.
ASI meets every other Wednesday in the Resnick Student Union Room 207. Meetings are livestreamed and open to the public.
