VOL. CXVIII, No. 28
DailyBarometer.com
tuesday, october 20, 2015 Oregon State University
ASOSU considers holding emergency election for SIFC board members By Sean Bassinger Senior Beat Reporter
Student leaders on campus have began discussions in regards to an emergency election for student fee committee members. The consideration of such an election comes after a bill failure in the Associated Students of Oregon State University House of Representatives on Wednesday, Oct. 21. If passed, the legislation would have allowed currently appointed interim members on the Student and Incidental Fees Committee to serve as members year round. Before last spring, members of the SIFC were selected via student votes during the regular ASOSU elections. Working with a review committee that consists of representatives from major student fee-funded organizations on campus, last year’s ASOSU executive branch made the decision to change the process. The new system would instead allow the ASOSU president to appoint members of the board based on recommendations from the new review committee. Cassie Huber, current ASOSU president, said members of the House don’t believe the process of an all-student body vote should stay in place for selecting SIFC members. “They felt that taking away the right for students to vote in these
positions was not really constitutionally correct,” Huber said. In addition, Huber said she would like to see the interim SIFC members continue throughout the year until new legislation can be created to help remedy the situation. “The next step is to just try and find time to write this legislation,” Huber said. Mykael Moore, current speaker of the house at ASOSU, said one suggestion for new legislation was a hybrid model that would allow voting to remain for some members and have the ASOSU president appoint others based on student organization recommendations. “I think that’s a really good reason why (the bill) didn’t pass,” Moore said. “The individuals were concerned that students weren’t going to have a say in the SIFC process. They
They really wanted to keep the process of SIFC membership in the hands of the students. Mykael Moore ASOSU House Speaker
really wanted to keep the process of SIFC membership in the hands of the students.” Lyndi Petty, ASOSU vice president and chief elections officer, has already met with election committee members to discuss election operations and promotion , according to Moore. The only issue Moore sees with such an election is that budget discussions and proposals from each student fee-funded group begin as early as the eighth week of fall term. “We’re getting really close to the wire with what they should be doing,” Moore said of the SIFC. Maria Yerkes, chair of the SIFC, said the committee has traditionally consisted of seven members – one of which being the chair – selected via spring student elections. Taylor Sarman, last year’s ASOSU president, decided to hold off on elections in an effort to transition toward the new process of student organizations recommending their own members. “Basically, they provided a recommendation to SIFC on changes,” Yerkes said. “Some of those changes included changing the structure of SIFC.” As of now, Yerkes said the current committee will remain in place and look to the ASOSU House for further instructions. “We follow a pretty tight budget timeline, so we’re just working until we’re told otherwise,” Yerkes said.
According to the Student and Incidental Fee Committee (SIFC), each full-time student paid a total of $446.21 in student fees per term in the 2014-2015 school year. The SIFC is the student organization responsible for allocating these funds to various resources on campus, including Student Health Services, student ticket allocations, ASOSU and over a dozen others. The members of the SIFC have previously been determined by campus elections, but this year members were appointed by ASOSU.
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Rocket club aims for the stars, prepares for competition Diverse group of students build winning rockets By Riley Youngman News Contributor
Aaron Newton | THE DAILY BAROMETEr
Senior electrical engineering major Elliott Fudim, assisted by senior mechanical engineering major Evan Bassford and first year mechanical engineering graduate student Kevin Quintero, inspects the rocket.
IN THIS ISSUE >>>
Headquartered in a small room in Rodgers Hall, the Oregon State University American Institute of Astronautics and Aeronautics (AIAA) rocket building team may not have a lot of room to work with, but that has not stopped them from accomplishing big things. Started only three years ago, the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) team has already established themselves as national champions, taking home first place in multiple categories at their first two years of competition. In 2014, the team took home first place in both the payload competition and the desired altitude competition and followed the next year with taking third in desired height in the advanced category, and again taking top
prize in payload. The payload, which is carried by the rocket, can be a variety of items including satellites, space probes, people, animals or other cargo for larger rockets. This year the ESRA rocket’s payload focuses on active stability control. “We don’t only make sweet rockets, we make the best payloads,” Elliot Fudim, a senior in electrical engineering and lead electrical engineer for the Active Stability Control Team explained. Fudim and Kevin Quintero, a first year grad student in mechanical engineering and lead mechanical engineer for the Active Stability Control Team, have worked two years on instituting electrical and mechanical components that guide the rocket and send data back to Earth, all while carefully navigating federal laws prohibiting complex guidance systems. “The only thing we can legally control is the spin. The moment you try to con-
See Rocket, Page 3
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