The Student Government (SG) Senate met Tuesday night to approve two courses of action relating to club violations.

A representative from the Ethics Committee presented the first course of action, titled the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA), for discussion among the representatives. The committee found VSA to be non-compliant with SG Statutes 801.3.1 and 805.1.1– which evaluate how club meetings are conducted — after VSA members hosted an event where attendees were charged at the door for entrance.

During its investigation, the Ethics Committee determined that any club event using SG-approved Activity and Service (A&S) fees should be open to all students free of charge. In response to VSA’s violation of Statute 801, the Committee approved a course of action plan including notifying current VSA leadership to comply with SG statutes and standards and auditing the annual event for the next three years.

Two club officers will also be required to undergo financial assistance education and, if evaluated to be non-compliant with the action plan, VSA will be subject to a 10% reduction from their A&S allocation.

Senate members then moved to consider a course of action plan for a travel-expenditure violation committed by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) club. After reviewing the case, the committee found that SHPE allocated excess funds to travel grants in order to attend the annual SHPE convention, violating the SG travel statute 806.5.2.2.

Rather than imposing a stricter course of action for SHPE’s violations, a majority of the senators agreed during discussion that since most of the club’s executive board will be graduating at the end of the spring semester, it would be unfair to impose punishments upon transitioning leadership.

A 25-vote majority approved a course of action plan requiring SHPE leadership to comply with SG travel standards under SG statute 806, subjecting the organization to a 5% reduction to their travel grant allocation for the 2023-2024 SHPE convention and requiring training before applying for travel grants.