The Student Senate meeting began at 6:09 p.m. on Monday, March 31 in the Woodland Theater.
During reports, Student Body President Sam Consiglio announced that petitions and candidate forms to run for positions within the senate body are now available to be picked up in Department Assistant Stephanie Pyykola’s office, Davies Center 220.
The senator seats are divided proportionally each year to the on- and off-campus communities. No experience in student government is required to run for office. Directors, chairs, commission and committees members and liaisons are all appointed by the president.
In old business, Student Organization (SOC) Director Tia Beirne reintroduced bill 68-R-11, titled “Adopting the 2025-2026 Student Organizations Fund Allocation.” The bill would allocate funds to student organizations for FY2026.
Beirne said SOC received record-breaking turnout, with over 62 organizations applying for funding. In total, the funding requested by all groups amounted to $65,177, with only $39,329 available to allocate.
After 12 hours worth of presentations and deliberation that followed, $38,222 was divided up and allocated to 55 student organizations. Beirne said a number of organizations did not receive funding because of one of three main things: they did not present for SOC, SOC could not fund the asked amount or they were a new student organization and therefore not eligible.
Beirne said that, while allocation discussions were done in a closed session, she could share that a lot of thought and consideration was put into making the final decisions.
“It was discussed and reviewed multiple times with a lot of individuals who were in attendance for most of the presentations,” Beirne said. “Our decisions were made primarily on whether the funding requests pertained to A-20 policy and based on the amount of students that the event would benefit.”
Beirne said the remaining $1,107 not allocated from the student organization fund will be used for the mandatory student organization transition training at the beginning of the year for leaders of student organizations.
During a speaker’s list prior to voting on the bill, Senator Matthew Lehner thanked the SOC and authors of the bill and said that while he would vote the bill up — there is more to be done about the lack of funding for student organizations.
“Our university system is underfunded,” Lehner said. “It is unfair that we have to continue to ask students to pay segregated fees to fund basic programs at this university. This could be a simple increase by our legislature to make sure all of these programs are funded what they want.”
Senator Rachel Schulte, who was a part of the deliberation committee for the allocations, said she would be voting the bill up.
“We did consider everybody fairly,” Schulte said. “Director Beirne and Senator (Audrey) Curtler put so much effort into this in making sure everyone got the fair amount.”
The bill passed with a vote of 37-0-2.
The senate adjourned at 7:02 p.m. and will reconvene at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 7 in the Dakota Ballroom.
Braun can be reached at braunee6220@uwec.edu.
