Sarah Banholzer

November 19, 2020

ASI Board of Directors Scholarship Bill

Headline: ASI Board of Directors table scholarship expansion bill for student government
members

In the most recent Associated Students Inc. (ASI) Board of Directors meeting on Nov. 18, the
board unanimously voted to lay Bill #21-01, the scholarship expansion bill for student
government members, on the table, suspending it for later discussion.

The expansion of scholarships had been the topic of discussion and debate within the Board of
Directors during the 2019-2020 academic year. However, it wasn’t until the beginning of fall
quarter that the ASI officer team began writing a bill to expand scholarships and brought it to the
Board of Directors for discussion.

According to Tess Loarie, Chair of the ASI Board of Directors, under the proposed bill, all
student government members would receive scholarships. Compensation amounts would be
based on individual responsibilities and the mandatory weekly hours required by each branch of
ASI.

In addition, if passed, the bill would not be implemented for this year’s Board of Directors and
other student government members, thereby eliminating a possible conflict of interest, according
to Loarie in an ASI Board of Directors workshop on Oct. 19.

Under ASI’s current scholarship policy, only the six students on the leadership team receive
scholarships. These scholarships are awarded based on different percentages of their cost of
attendance.

Currently, the ASI President receives a 100% scholarship, Chair of the Board of Directors and
Chair of the University Union Advisory Board (UUAB) both receive a 75% scholarship, Chief of
Staff receives a 50% scholarship and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors and the Vice Chair of
the UUAB both receive a 25% scholarship.

This year’s leadership team scholarships will amount to $122,908, according to Loarie in a
Board of Directors workshop on Oct. 19. These scholarships are funded by Cal Poly student
fees.

However, according to the ASI Budget Breakdown of the 2018 fall quarter fees, student
government scholarships only made up 0.4% of the total $110.50 that every student paid as
their quarterly ASI fee. The cost of the leadership team scholarships amounted to a fee of $1.50
per student in the year 2018.
According to Loarie, funding for the scholarships proposed in the recent bill would come from
the student government and ASI budget but would not increase student fees. Instead, funds
from other student government line items, like travel, office supplies and programming, would be
redistributed to the funding of the scholarships.

The discussion of expanding scholarships for student government members has largely
revolved around the push for increased diversity, equity and inclusion within ASI student
government.

By expanding scholarships and allowing for compensation of all student government members,
the bill hopes to allow ASI to become more accessible to students who face financial hardship,
and in turn, increase the diversity of ASI.

“I know as someone who had to decide between ASI and keeping my other job that paid me,
this [scholarship bill] would have been a huge factor in recruiting me in past years. So I think this
is long overdue,” Director Parker Swanson said in an Oct. 21 ASI Board of Directors meeting.

The week prior to the Nov. 18 Board of Directors meeting, the meeting in which the board was
set to vote on the scholarship bill, a clause in the California Code of Regulations was brought to
light, seemingly inhibiting the Board of Director’s ability to approve Bill #21-01.

The clause stated that in regards to student government scholarships, “the principle of
establishing such payments shall be approved by a student referendum,” according to the
California Code of Regulation, Title 5, Section 42659.

According to Loarie, an ASI staff member was updating their FERPA training when they came
across this section of Title 5, the California education code of regulations. After an investigation
by the ASI staff, this clause was brought to the attention of the ASI officers and Board of
Directors and it was recommended that the bill be postponed.

The clause was sent to ASI’s legal consultants who interpreted this as meaning ASI needed to
pass a student referendum, or a general vote by the student body, prior to updating the policy to
include scholarship expansions, according to Loarie.

In the Nov. 18 Board of Directors meeting, there was debate over the interpretation of the
language proposed in the Title 5 clause.

Dwayne Brummett, ASI Associate Executive Director, argued that the language in Bill #21-01
proposed creating new scholarships for more student government members, thereby requiring
the bill to go to a student referendum.

“It has to do with transparency, where you have student government leaders creating
compensation for other student government leaders without the general student body knowing
about it,” Brummett said.
Multiple directors questioned this interpretation, arguing that ASI has already established the
principle of student government scholarships, with the six student government scholarships
given to the leadership team.

“That keyword is ‘principle’. We have already established the principle of scholarships being
given to student government leaders,” Director Swanson said during the Nov. 18 Board of
Directors meeting. “The bill put forth is an expansion of that principle to allow for Board of
Director members to be compensated for their labor. This is not giving ourselves money. We are
setting a precedent for future years to fix a glaring structural inequality.”

In the discussion of the student body approving the reallocation of their own student fees, the
recent $7.9 million worth of University Union (UU) funds that were loaned to University Housing
without consent from the students was brought into question.

It was disputed by Brummett as he explained that this loan, which helped eliminate University
Housing’s debt, was not affected by Title 5 and therefore did not require a student referendum
because of the difference between UU funds and ASI funds.

Brummett explained that UU funds are similar to campus funds and can be used for an array of
different purposes without legal repercussions. However, ASI funds are more restrictive and
there are only two distinct legal purposes they can be used for.

During the Nov. 18 meeting, Brummett explained that it is still unclear if a referendum was used
to initially establish the six leadership team scholarships. Brummett referenced multiple student
government documents dating back 50 plus years, that mentioned student stipends. In the
documents, there was no mention of a referendum ever being passed nor a clear explanation of
how the original six scholarships were established

“We did our best to try to figure this stuff out before we even came to the officers and explained
what we uncovered,” Brummet said in the Nov. 18 meeting. “We’re continuing to dig, continuing
to research trying to figure out what other campuses have done and what their experiences
have been. So it’s an ongoing thing.”

Multiple directors questioned how other CSU’s currently give out scholarships to their student
government members.

ASI President Shayna Lynch said that after reaching out to multiple presidents of other CSU’s,
two presidents responded saying they both went through a referendum to approve their
student-government scholarships.

According to Marcy Maloney, ASI Executive Director, multiple CSU’s, including San Diego State,
pay their student government members on payroll instead. According to Maloney, if students are
paid on payroll, they do not have to go through a referendum.
Multiple ASI alumni board members spoke during the open forum of the Nov. 18 meeting urging
the current Board of Directors to vote to approve Bill #21-01 and continue the discussion of
expanding scholarships to all student government members.

These past board members pushed the current board of directors to keep the students’ needs at
the forefront of their minds while voting on this bill, not their corporate responsibility to ASI.

“I ask you, when you signed up to run to be a board of director, did you run because you wanted
to fulfill some corporate responsibility? Or did you run because you wanted to serve the
students who have been historically underserved at this university?” former chair of recruitment
elections, Conner O’Neil, said.

The 2019-2020 Board of Directors Chair, Rob Moore also spoke during the open forum.

“Last year I was compensated around $24,000 for my role in the organization,” Moore said. “I
can promise you that I was not doing 24,000 times the amount of work as any of you are today.
That’s what inequality looks like.”

Alumni board members also pushed for the approval of the scholarship bill to fight for equity in
ASI and in Cal Poly.

“The way that Cal Poly and ASI Student Government has been structured, it was built by
oppressors who want to keep voices off the table,” O’Neil said. “You’re not going to be able to
make an equitable change at this university if you play by the rules in which they have set forth
for you.”

The board’s ultimate decision to lay the scholarship expansion bill on the table suspended the
bill. However, the bill can still be reintroduced to the board at a later date. A board member
could make a simple motion to take the bill back off the table whenever the board feels it
appropriate to discuss the bill again.

At the ASI workshop meeting on Jan. 4, the board of directors discussed their next steps
forward with the advice of legal counsel. University Union Director Michelle Crawford presented
the board of directors with their options.

Option one would be to make the ASI Board of Directors employees. The students would get
paychecks that would be based on an hourly rate. This move would not require a student
referendum.

A potential concern is that this could be limiting to some students that are interested in these
positions, according to Crawford. If the students were to be paid by the school, students with
pre-existing campus jobs may have a conflict since they cannot exceed 20 hours worked in a
week on campus.
These students would also have to be eligible to work in the United States. This could
potentially limit undocumented students from being able to hold these positions.

The second option is to have a student referendum, a vote through a secret ballot. In order to
pass, the referendum would require campus support not just from the students but approval
from President Jeffery Armstong as well.

If the board of directors chooses this option, the referendum could be voted on in the spring,
according to Crawford.

The Board of Directors will continue this discussion at their next meeting on Jan. 6