Allegheny Student Government’s Chief of Staff Hayden Moyer, ’17, announced during his report on Tuesday, Oct. 25, that the college this year saw a negative one percent return on its invested endowment. Moyer’s  report came from the College Committees Council’s Finance and Facilities Committee.

Moyer said it was not discussed during the meeting what had caused the one percent drop, so he therefore could not elaborate on what the cause of the drop had been.

“I am assuming it is just stock-based,” Moyer said.

ASG Director of Finance Luke McBride, ’18, said that this decrease in return is part of a larger trend in higher education, and other colleges and universities are facing similar problems.

During his report on the CCC, Moyer said he is still trying to fill a few open positions on the council’s various committees. He said he will be posting these vacancies and opening applications soon.

Moyer also noted that the college had recently released its student conduct report, which provides facts and figures on the number of honor code violations and investigations. Moyer said he hopes to have Joe Hall, director of student conduct and development, come and present the report to ASG.

The Academic Standards and Awards committee, another CCC committee, has been considering a change to the commencement ceremony dress code that currently does not allow any honor cords to be worn during the ceremony, according to Moyer.

Moyer said the committee is currently waiting on the Jostens catalogue to come in, in order to see what its options for cords would be.

The committee on Campus Life and Community standards, Moyer said, is also considering drafting a peaceful protest policy, which would outline a set of rules and guidelines for protests on campus.

Attorney General Eric Chang, ’17, introduced Maddie Meehan, ’17, who will be serving as an ex officio, representing  Panhellenic Council.

Chang said Meehan will attend meetings and update ASG on anything related to the council. He said this is a change in how ex officios operate and he feels it will benefit all involved.

“In the past ex officios gave written reports to the president and vice president,” Chang said. “We thought it would be beneficial to have them at meetings.”

According to Chang, ASG also hopes to add another ex officio from the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. He said these are two groups that have often been underrepresented on ASG, so he hopes this will help to give them more of a voice.

Ex officios are not permitted to vote.

Director of Communications and Press Mark Myers, ’19, brought up four candidates to serve as ex officios on his Public Relations Committee. He said each of the four would be tasked with a specific social media platform to update periodically.

Class of 2017 Senator Amy Currul voiced concerns with the move, stating members of ASG had only received three of the four candidate biographies, and only 40 minutes before the meeting. She said because of this, she did not feel she could vote on whether to approve the candidates or not.

“It just feels very, I don’t know, unprepared,” Currul said.

Myers apologized for not getting the information to ASG members sooner.

“I think we are all busy right now. I got out what I could when I could,” he said.

Senator Walter Stover, ’17, agreed with Currul and moved to table the vote until next week’s meeting. Currul seconded the motion, which passed 8-7 with one abstention.   

ASG’s meeting on Oct. 25 was held with the lights off, in support of the October Energy Challenge.

“The main idea was we wanted to support that and turn everything off,” said Levi Lundell, ’17, ASG director of sustainability.

During her president’s report, Tess Bracken, ’17, reported to ASG that the conference she and several other members attended on the weekend of Oct. 22 was a positive experience.

“We are feeling pretty good about ourselves after this conference,” she said. “We have a lot of things going right.”

Bracken said despite their success, they still have things they can improve on. She said she would be presenting a full report on the conference at ASG’s next meeting on Nov. 2.