How government works with education
David Robinson gave a presentation to allocate money from Saddleback toward Katie Higman, a Sacramento representative. Higman represents Region 8 of the California Community College system and once a year she is sent to Sacramento to meet with politicians and important members of the California Education system.
Robinson wants to allocate money for lunch meetings and refreshments at other meetings. Higman can request additional funding for schools from her region by asking California politicians to direct more money to schools.
Higman directly represents 2.6 million students throughout the region 8 area of southern California community colleges.
Region 8 has 14 community colleges some of which include: Saddleback Community College, Fullerton Community College, Santiago Canyon College, and Cerritos College.
“What the ASG Senate also needs to consider is what they are funding, know what the other funding sources are, and know what the money is used for,” Director of Student Development Audra DiPadova said.
“There will be two phases; phase one will need only $300 and phase two only needs $100,” Robinson said. The $400 total will provide during the meetings that Higman has to attend to speak with college representatives.
When Higman goes to Sacramento she also can speak out for or against statewide affairs as well. The presentation’s main goal is to allow these meetings to take place because Higman wants to request more funds form California officials to replenish the Region 8 treasury.
Other schools have been asked to help. The plan has already been approved by both the Budget Committee and Erik Breman, ASG President. The reason Robinson was giving the presentation was to let the ASG Senate know he needed to allocate funds from their own account. “Any funds not used or left over are immediately put back into your account,” Robinson said.
Bahman Sabahi also had a presentation to give about what is known as the Peer-to-Peer Project.
Sabahi acquired funds for a mentorship project which gives incoming students a mentor and can help pay for some college. It can be a voucher for supplies at the book store (it does not pay for books however), or can be used for food in the cafeteria.
The funds cannot be used to pay for classes or anything like that. The project is to allow students new to the school to get help by starting them off on the correct path toward whatever major they are working for. It funds for extra academic activities such as labs or conferences that are related to the students major.
The school has allocated $10,000 from the overall budget for the divisions to fund their students for this project which is based on the funding of each division from the overall yearly budget. The other $10,000 has been redirected to the divisions based on the percentages they have spent in the past.
Shireen Ebrahim then said, “I move to approve the project. All in favor?” After everyone in the senate raised their hand it was unanimous and the project was passed by the senate.
The senate also gained a new senator for the Health Sciences Building, Shahrzad Arjomandi. Arjomandi will replace Rodman Oveisi who was promoted to the Chief Justice of the Judiciary council in recent weeks. The senate also did a quick review of the new registration ordeals starting in spring of 2013.
The school is changing the way priority registration works; the decision was made by the Vice Chancellor and Vice President. There is a way to challenge the priority registration however, if a student is serious about trying because the reason the new rule was passed was to weed out the students that are not taking their education seriously.
The school wants to give priority registration to students that want to graduate not just going to school to goof around in college.