At its Wednesday meeting, the Undergraduate Senate (UGS) discussed the “Joint Bill to Adopt an Alternate Procedure for ASSU Nominations,” which the UGS passed unanimously last week to modify the ASSU nomination process.
The GSC passed a separate bill to strike three positions from the list: the nominees for Nominations Commission, Board on Conduct Affairs and Faculty Senate Representative-at-Large. Following this, the GSC voted unanimously to pass the bill, which allows the UGS and GSC to confirm candidates for university committees in the absence of a Nominations Commission (NomCom).
“I’m a bit disappointed that we were unable to pass the entire bill in full, but I’m still happy that we are getting some folks on our university committees,” UGS Chair David Sengthay ’26 said.
The UGS will vote on the “Joint Bill to Confirm a Nominee to the Constitutional Council” in next Wednesday’s meeting. If passed, the bill will confirm nominee Fiona Clunan ’24 J.D. ’28 to the Constitutional Council. The Constitutional Council is responsible for cases regarding the compliance of members or bodies of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) with the ASSU Constitution.
“[The Administration and Rules Committee] are going to be meeting … the candidate for the Constitutional Council … and will have our formal recommendation ready for the next general meeting,” UGS senator Dan Kubota ’27 said.
Funding recommendations from the Appropriations Committee, which allocated over $29,000 to student organizations, were also approved by the UGS.
The UGS also heard a presentation from Tom Liu, a sixth-year physics Ph.D. student, on the results of a recent survey on the Office of Community Standards (OCS). In his presentation, Liu mentioned several student accounts that allege the OCS is overly litigious.
“There is a very strong sense of overreporting by professors,” Liu said. “These professors kind of see OCS as a place to report anyone they’re uncertain about.”
Liu also noted student reports of behavior in contradiction with the OCS charter, including “hiding evidence that would exonerate the student.”
“This has had real emotional and academic harm,” Liu said.
Sengthay agreed that the UGS should advocate for OCS reform. “I think given that there is a new director, and that an external audit was performed,” Sengthay said. “I really do firmly believe that not only concentrated advocacy with the Board on Conduct Affairs, within the UGS as well, is conducive to some change that may happen.”
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that the GSC did not amend or vote on the UGS “Joint Bill to Adopt an Alternate Procedure for ASSU Nominations,” instead passing a separate bill. The Daily regrets this error.