By Adam Magnoni.
The BCC Associated Student Government (ASG) held their weekly board of directors meeting on Nov. 13. The board was set to pick up the tabled funding request from Student Physical Activities regarding BCC’s open gym, hear from the Director of Legislative Affairs, Vanessa Pantley, and watch a presentation regarding The Rotaract Club’s trip to Nepal.
Pantley, who works with the ASBCC Legislative Committee, was on hand to propose Bill 200807, which would change some language in the programs bylaws, specifically regarding the hiring process. As they were originally written, the bylaws were inconsistent with the rest of the ASG’s hiring criteria. When drafted it was stated that all members of the Legislative Committee would be required to maintain a minimum 2.7 GPA, at the college level. The proposition was to change that language so that a 2.7 GPA would still be a requirement or a combined, BCC college-level GPA from the two previous consecutive quarters, or whichever is highest. This would essentially extend the pool of candidates that the Legislative Committee could potentially higher from.
Amanda Alva, ASG president, questioned whether the change was indeed intended to keep continuity, or to just ease the restrictions on potential personnel. Recently, the assistant director of the legislative committee, Angelina Gradskayn, had turned in her resignation.
“I keep hearing consistency from the director regarding the fact that doing this bylaw change, right now, under this circumstance, will make it equitable with the other job descriptions, applications that are required for our positions and student programs,” said Alva. “That is not true. The fact that she’s asking for one change, but opting to leave out the change that would make the overall hiring process consistent with the rest of the job descriptions is questionable for me. What are the true intentions behind this?”
“When this inconsistency was brought to my attention I immediately thought it must be changed for the hiring process,” said Pantley. “It wasn’t my understanding that there were other ones [inconsistencies] as well, if I recognized that, and knew that, I would have made those changes as well.”
The board then set to amending the bill so that it would be entirely consistent with all other programs. Along with the original change, the legislation was changed to require the maintenance of a 2.7 GPA, students must be enrolled with 8 credits, and must have taken at least twelve credits at BCC prior to application. The bill was passed 6-0-0.
Dominic Lee, The ASG clubs and programs representative, then spoke on behalf of Peter Prescott, an athletic director at BCC. He is seeking $10,000-$12,000 to fund BCC’s open gym program, hire on a coordinator for the program, and fund general expansion of activities provided for students.
The board had tabled the proposal previously and had questioned the exact dollar amounts for the request. The lump sum was in requisition to cover open gym and the new positions salary.
Two students were on hand to support open gym, a popular program among students. Again, the board tabled the request until an exact amount could be determined on the cost to keep open gym alive while questioning the salary amount for the coordinator position.
Next, BCC’s Rotaract Club presented a video illustrating their efforts on a trip to Nepal last year. The group focused on disability awareness and is looking to partner with the Venture Program and bring a student with disabilities along on their next trip. This was just an informational session, and the club stated it would be officially requesting funds at a future meeting.