UNC-system student governments to meet this weekend

After a two-month hiatus, the UNC-system Association of Student Governments is convening this weekend in Winston-Salem with an ambitious agenda.

In the interim, members have been applying for project grants and gathering student signatures on a tuition petition to present to N.C. legislators.

Members will present their requests for funding for campus projects this weekend and decide which of those projects receive funding through the group’s campus innovation grants.

ASG has allocated $9,300 of its annual budget for innovation grant programs. The maximum grant amount is $1,000, said Cydney Swofford, ASG vice president of government operations and community service.

Members will decide whether to award money to projects based on how beneficial the projects are for students and the community, Swofford said.

“We don’t want to stifle the creativity within the campuses so there is no textbook criteria for requesting a grant,” Swofford said.

Jasmin Jones, UNC-Chapel Hill student body president, said UNC applied for grants to implement the NextBus system on the P2P and for bikes for the SafeWalk program.

ASG also will discuss strategies to persuade N.C. legislators to allow revenue from tuition increases to be returned to the UNC system, said Greg Doucette, ASG president.

Members have already been circulating petitions at their individual campuses that make that request and that the legislature approve campus-based tuition increases, rather than the increase generated by the legislature.

The N.C. General Assembly mandated a tuition increase in August 2009 that would bring all the revenue generated from the increase back to the state’s general fund, rather than the UNC system.

The academic and student affairs committee will discuss coordinating a Haiti relief project.

Ira Lawson, an ECU student and vice president of ASG’s academic and student affairs committee, said he hopes to compile individual schools’ donation collections and sent them to the American Red Cross or a similar organization.

However, many schools already have plans in place for sending their donations.

“If they want to join then they are more than welcome. It’s all going to the same place whether it is collected through ASG or other organizations,” Lawson said.

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.