Monday, September 2, 2019
Volume LXIII, Issue 2
sbstatesman.com
USG finds discrepancies in constitution and code
IACS receives $11.3M donation for research
By Samantha Robinson
By Maya Brown
Assistant News Editor
Assistant News Editor
Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Shaheer Khan revealed that major discrepancies were found within the USG constitution and code at a senate meeting on Thursday, Aug. 29. USG hired lawyers to look into its governing documents over the summer. In May, USG announced a $15,000 hike in legal fees for its 2019-2020 academic year budget. The now $50,000 allocated towards legal fees is paying for lawyers who review the constitution and code. “This year’s going to be a very transformative year for the Undergraduate Student Government,” Khan said. “For the first time in a long time, the USG will be going in depth and really analyzing our constitution and making tangible changes to it.” The issues found with the two documents can cause serious problems for USG as an organization, Khan said. During USG training, Khan said all of the senators and executive council members sat down to read the constitution and found themselves baffled. “We were reading it and we’re like, ‘This is so confusing,’” Khan said. “Shouldn’t a governing docu-
The Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS) at Stony Brook University received a $6.3 million anonymous donation in early August that will advance data-driven research for the department. They also received a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will enable researchers nationwide to test future super computing technologies. According to the IACS website, the department’s vision is “to establish Stony Brook University at the forefront of data and computing in science and engineering by advancing vibrant interdisciplinary research and education programs.” “A very accomplished person looked at the impact of our institute over the past six years and at our plans for the future, and decided to double down on the original multi-million dollar investment,” Robert Harrison, Ph.D. director of the IACS, said, referring to the anonymous donation. He said that he is excited for the department’s future with key
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Students, alumni and families watch in excitement. Stony Brook football team won 35-10 in their season opener against Bryant University on Thursday, Aug. 29. ment be something that everybody can read and understand? And if students themselves can’t understand it, then who’s it written for? If we need lawyers to read it, that just doesn’t make sense.” Khan said USG couldn’t make sense of their own governing documents, which he saw as a problem. The main issue between the constitution and the code, he pointed out, is that they often don’t align. “The code is something that we can change internally within USG,” Khan said. “Often times while we’re adding to the code, our constitution is being left behind. And when you compare the two documents, sometimes the constitution will say, ‘Please refer to code xyz,’ or the code will say, ‘Please refer to page 3 in the constitution,’ and they don’t match. They don’t talk, and that’s a big issue.”
Mohamed Heiba, the USG executive vice president, saw problems within his own title and powers. “Under my responsibilities, it says that I am the chair of the senate, but if you look under the senate information … it says the chair of the senate, but it does not specify who the chair of the senate is. That’s very problematic,” Heiba said. “It’s referring to anyone being the chair of the senate, when under my responsibilities, it says that I’m the chair of the senate.” USG Treasurer Adrian Ortega said that though USG doesn’t have a set date, he expects they’ll be finished with revisions by October. “Over the summer, we’ve already started speaking with our legal council and red marking what we need to change and then going from there,” Ortega said. “It’s been a process.
Now, we’re going to try to move forward a lot faster with it.” Since the USG constitution is decided upon by the students, Khan said the process is going to be an “open forum.” “In order for [the constitution] to change, we have to put it out for a vote,” he said. “The student body has the right to vote for which changes need to be made, which is great because we need transparency, we need accountability, and at the end of the day, we serve our student body.” Khan hopes a more comprehensive constitution will encourage more students to participate in USG. “We want to simplify [the USG governing documents] as much as we can so students can understand it, read it, and then actually apply to it,” Khan said. “Our whole thing is just to make it easier and more accessible for students.”
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Stony Brook graduate student honored with Hidden Hero Award By Samantha Robinson Assistant News Editor
Recent Stony Brook alumna, Yark Beyan, was awarded the Hidden Hero Award by the Andrew Goodman Foundation (AGF) for her commitment to promoting civic engagement on June 22. The AGF focuses on encouraging young people to participate in democracy. It founded the Vote Everywhere program, which was brought to Stony Brook University in 2015. Beyan joined the team in 2016, when she began serving as a Team Leader for the Stony Brook campus. Since then, she has been offered a position as Program Administrative Assistant in the fellowship department with the Open Society Foundation to support international work on social justice, education and human rights. According to a press release issued by the organization, the AGF honors five Vote Everywhere Am-
bassadors who uphold its mission of “expanding civic engagement and defending democracy.” Taryn Dwyer, the program and fellowship manager for the AGF, said Beyan encapsulated these qualities. “The award is really meant to designate when somebody has done exceptional work on their campus and is really spearheading specific leadership on that campus,” Dwyer said. “Every semester [Beyan’s] been involved [with the AGF] she’s done really exceptional work.” Dwyer served as a mentor and advisor for Beyan with the AGF and nominated her for the award. Dwyer said it was Beyan’s voter registration skills that led to her nomination. “She’s done and led some exceptional voter registration work on campus,” Dwyer said. “At Stony Brook, during her entire time as an ambassador, her team has registered at least over 8,000 students.”
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In order to achieve those numbers, Beyan helped Stony Brook revolutionize its voter registration initiatives. The school used to leave registration forms and a pencil on a table in the Student Activities Center at student orientations, which resulted in low registration rates, she said. Many who registered did so incorrectly. Beyan said her team had to devise a new strategy. “We decided to start having a physical person there to register students, and we saw a huge increase from that,” she said. “Just having someone at the table meant students were being registered to vote correctly and at a higher rate as well.” Beyan also helped to found the Center for Civic Justice, which aims to help engaged Stony Brook students “positively contribute to the betterment of their communities through awareness, advocacy and action,” according to its website. Beyan wrote the proposal to start the center.
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“A lot of the other schools that are partnered with the AGF have a center, so we’re the outliers,” she said. “Rather than going to the administration and telling them to create a center, we [Stony Brook’s Vote Everywhere program] thought it would be pretty amazing if we wrote a proposal to start it and made it student-led instead.” Beyan worked with Steven Adelson, the co-director of the Center for Civic Justice, to found the center. He called her a “standout leader and visionary,” something that allowed Beyan and her team to understand the need for a Center for Civic Justice on campus. “They wanted to ensure that their work, and the importance of civic and voter engagement, was sustainable and part of every student’s experience … The students decided to bring together the ideas of social justice and civic engagement into a single term,” Adelson wrote in an
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email. “Civic justice is the process of acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to be a civic leader.” Visiting the AGF table during the involvement fair in her freshman year, Beyan was told the story of how people who tried to register African Americans to vote were murdered by the Klu Klux Klan across the United States. It compelled her to join the AGF. After that, she stayed because of her passion for advancing democracy and says she wants other people to know these stories and fight for themselves. “I’m very outspoken, and when I see something that’s like, a pothole, for instance, or why the heck tuition keeps going higher and higher, I just have that passion behind me,” she said. “I wanted other people to see how important these issues are.” It isn’t always an easy task, Beyan said. Some people are reluctant to
Continued on page 4 Sports
IACS given $11.3M donation.
Wolfieland tickets go up a second time.
Defending the AR15.
Football opens season with win.
MORE ON PAGE 4
MORE ON PAGE 5
MORE ON PAGE 8
MORE ON PAGE 9
$6.3M anonmyous donation plus $5M grant from NSF.
USG decides to raise the prices on Wolfieland, again.
Semi-automatic weapons are intrical to self-defense.
Seawolves victorious over Bryant at home.