At its first general body meeting of the 2024-2025 academic year, Student Council provided updates on the annual budget, passed legislation granting new organizations Contracted Independent Organization status and appointed second-year College student Emily Frost as the new Director of University Relations.
Student Council also encouraged students looking to learn more about its operations and its functions to attend this particular meeting, which was followed by an ice cream social as part of the ongoing Student Council Week to increase awareness about Student Council and recruitment.
Student Council formally welcomed Frost as Student Council’s new Director of University Relations during its Tuesday meeting. Frost said that, during her time as DUR, she hopes to raise awareness about Student Council's activities and resources, which include over 40 committees covering various student interests.
“When I tell people I'm in Student Council, one of the most common reactions I get is, ‘Oh, what does Student Council do?’ And I really look forward to getting the word out there because I feel like Student Council genuinely does so much for the student body,” Frost said.
After introducing herself to the general body, Frost said has already started working in her new position, including updating parts of the organization’s website.
Student Council also shared updates about the Support and Access Services branch’s agenda for the year during the meeting. According to Student Council’s website, the SAS branch is “charged with the management and establishment of direct service providers for students,” and it offers services such as emergency grants for students from the U.Va. Mutual Aid fund and Student Legal Services.
Clay Dickerson, chief of SAS and third-year College student, said SAS has started offering some of its services for the semester, including the Textbook Access Office, which helps subsidize textbook expenses for students and now offers a free library of donated textbooks.
“Textbook access office requests are open … our goal is to let students save a few hundred bucks on the books that they shouldn't have to buy,” Dickerson said. “You can use the website to fill out a form and request books you need, online, physical, whatever that may be.”
Much of the funding for Student Council’s SAS branch comes from Student Council’s endowment. Last year, President Jim Ryan pledged to allocate a minimum of $750,000 of discretionary funds over the course of three years to Student Council, and the previous Student Council executive committee committed 50 percent of endowment funds to supporting the services of the SAS branch.
Valentina Mendoza Gonzalez, Student Council president and fourth-year College student, said her immediate priority is to secure another endowment to expand the services of the SAS branch.
Along with the endowment, the student activities fee — an annual payment all students are required to make — is another consistent source of funding for Student Council. Previously, Student Council raised the Student Activities Fee by $2 to $58 in 2023 after previously increasing it from $50 to $56 in 2022.
“While we understand that the $58 that goes to our tuition helps us give the services that we have for SAS, we also understand that it shouldn't really fall on students to pay for that,” Mendoza Gonzalez said. “So we would love to secure an endowment that would allow Student Council to run on its own budget to expand the SAS branch.”
Mendoza Gonzalez also said that she wants to run an institutional review of SAS to understand what University students need and how to serve them best.
“After running analytics, after analyzing our data of who uses the services, [we want to understand] what do [students] actually want?” Mendoza Gonzalez said. “Hopefully we can use an endowment to expand SAS, but also make it more intentional.”
The use of endowment funds is one topic considered when Student Council allocates funds through its annual budget. Brookelyn Mitchell, vice president for administration and fourth-year College student, said she will be working with Student Council leadership and Augie Maurelli, vice president for finance and chief financial officer, to finalize the budget over the next couple of weeks and make sure it is in line with their goals for the year.
Andreas Masiakos, chair of the representative body and fourth-year College student, said Student Council will try to pass the annual budget within the next three to four weeks, and that representatives who would like funding for specific projects should reach out to him as soon as possible.
“I know there are frequently issues where [representatives] want to amend the budget, but given the tight time frame, we're hoping to get the finalized version of the budget as soon as possible so we can pass it expeditiously”
During its legislative session, Student Council unanimously passed a bill to approve new CIOs, including Common Cents Club and Global Research and Consulting Club. According to Ryan Bowers, vice president for organizations and fourth-year Commerce student, Student Council received between 40 and 50 applications over the summer, with 13 CIOs making it onto the legislation to be officially recognized this year.
Bowers said he looked through each application himself and finalized the list based on whether or not they fulfilled the requirements for gaining CIO status, and that CIOs are required to submit plans for funding, a constitution and other documents ahead of a vote to approve.
“[Approving the CIOs] was the first [Organizations] bill of the fall,” Bowers said. “We had about 40 or 50 applications this summer, which is a record high for the summer round.”
Bowers also said that Student Council will be approving more CIOs in the coming weeks, including some next week.
To round out the ongoing Student Council Week, Student Council hosted a “SAS Scavenger Hunt” Sept. 4, where students explored various SAS resource locations, solved clues and won prizes. They also hosted “Cabinet Appreciation Day” Sept. 5 to provide students with an opportunity to learn about Student Council’s leadership. Finally, they will have an “Org Branch on the Go” event Sept. 6 where students can enjoy coffee while learning about how the organization branch operates.
Applications for Student Council are currently open and will close September 9. Student Council will meet again on Tuesday.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article mistakenly spelled the Common Cents club as the Common Sense club. The article has been updated to reflect this change.
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