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THE MASSACHUSETTS
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DAILY COLLEGIAN DailyCollegian.com
Monday, September 28, 2015
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SGA training urges outreach
Piquing interest
New senators learn about procedures By Stuart FoSter Collegian Staff
KATHERINE MAYO/COLLEGIAN
Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen delivers the Economics Department’s annual Philip Gamble Memorial Lecture Thursday evening. In an optimistic speech about the American economy, Yellen predicted the Reserve will raise interest rates within the next year.
The Student Government Association held a training session for newly elected undergraduate senators Sunday in the Campus Center, which covered the senate’s different committees, plans the legislative branch has for this semester and training on Title IX and campus violence prevention. Many of the chairpersons of various senatorial committees stressed how important it is for senators to reach out to their residential areas and to project a positive image of the SGA. “All of you were chosen by your constituents,” said Emily Spiewak, a junior legal studies and economics major who is the chairwoman of the SGA’s Outreach and Development Committee. Spiewak also told senators to
assume their actions will be seen as representative of the SGA and to create a positive image of the organization. Senate speaker Lauren Coakley had a similar message to senators. Coakley highlighted how senators must make sure they know the needs of their constituents and can respond to them. Coakley included Back to the People events, which are supposed to be held twice a semester for each residential area, as an example of how senators could engage with their constituents. “To be completely honest with you, Back to the People events last year kind of fell to the wayside,” Coakley said. “So we really want to stress how important they are this year.” Coakley included University of Massachusetts fee increases “haven’t had any results” and the one-day shipping deal with Amazon, which has received many see
SGA TRAINING on page 2
Bernie Sanders supporters New SGA speakers want set up shop in Amherst more senate transparency Volunteers pass out merchandise By Danny CorDova Collegian Correspondent The Amherst Town Common hosted the town’s apple harvest and crafts festival Saturday, and amid the crafts was a small table in support of a Democratic presidential Bernie Sanders. A group of volunteers from the Progressive Democrats of America, a liberal political organization, set up a table every Saturday morning at the commons and hands out pamphlets, flyers and buttons in order to promote their candidate. The pamphlets and flyers provide information about Sanders and his campaign,
which informs readers about the Senator’s plans, which include investment in infrastructure, transformation of energy systems to rely less on fossil fuels, raising the federal minimum wage and making college affordable. John J. Templeton Sr., a volunteer and Bernie Sanders supporter, believes that American voters are fed up with politicians that have been bought up by the wealthy and work against the interest of the American people. “People are really fed up with that and they really sense that Bernie Sanders is quite different from your average politician,” Templeton states. “Bernie doesn’t accept [Political Action Committees] contributions and will not accept money from corporations.”
An issue that affects younger voters is student debt. Sanders’ plan to address this issue would make all public universities and colleges tuition-free and cut student loan interest rates nearly in half. “There was one fellow volunteering from the University of Massachusetts who is a junior and he has 75,000 dollars in debt,” Templeton added. What Bernie is going to do is eliminate or try to minimize that kind of exploitation and return the loan system to a governmental program that offers low rates.” Sanders will host a rally on the steps of Springfield City Hall at 2 p.m. Oct. 3, followed by a 6 p.m. rally at the Boston Convention see
SANDERS on page 2
Greater student outreach expected By Stuart FoSter Collegian Staff
Leaders of the Student Government Association’s legislative branch said making the actions of the undergraduate senate more transparent to the student body is a major goal for the next semester. While the senate will still work on their traditional responsibilities, such as allocating the budgets of Registered Student Organizations, Speaker Lauren Coakley emphasized that senators need to become more involved with the communities they represent. “I really want senators to not just be a mere presence
in the senate,” said Coakley, each semester, where they a junior who is majoring reach out to their constituin political science and ents for responses. Brunelle resource economics. “I’ve said the senate has already considered putting it in the scheduled this semester’s. Coakley mentioned new bylaws that we need to be areas of focus senators more involved.” Coakley outlined a plan would be trained on this year that would use iClickers to as well, such as receiving record how senators vote on direct action training from specific resolutions and post the Center for Education the results online, where Policy and Advocacy and students could see how their receiving more education representatives voted on cer- about RSO budgets. Coakley added that she tain issues. Historically, the SGA has not taken a record would work more with of the number of votes on CEPA this year than senate speakers have in the past. specific resolutions. While the SGA and CEPA Julie Brunelle, associate are different organizations, speaker of the senate, men- Coakley said they should tioned how important it is collaborate on issues whenfor senators to take more ever they can. Brunelle consultation from students, added that a strong relationespecially in the form of the ship with CEPA should help the SGA approach issues of Back to the People events. SGA senators have two Back to the People events see SGA SPEAKER on page 2
Obama, Putin to meet next week to discuss Ukraine, Syria By Jonathan S. LanDay anD anita Kumar McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet next week in New York for the first time in nearly a year to discuss the war in Syria, where the Kremlin is building up a military force, and consolidating a peace deal in Ukraine, the White House announced Friday. The White House sought to tamp down expectations that the talks - the Kremlin said they would take place on Monday - would bring any major breakthroughs toward reversing the worst downturn in relations between Washington and Moscow since the collapse of
the former Soviet Union in 1991. “Given the situations in Ukraine and Syria, despite our profound differences with Moscow, the president believes that it would be irresponsible not to test whether we can make progress through high-level engagement with the Russians,” said an unidentified senior administration official in a statement emailed by the White House. Moreover, while Putin, who requested the meeting, was expected to focus on the Syrian civil war and his deployment of aircraft, armor and personnel at an airport near the Mediterranean coast, Obama intends to concentrate on what the administration says is unrelenting
Russian military backing for pro-Moscow separatists in two enclaves of eastern Ukraine. “President Obama will once again use this occasion to reinforce to President Putin the importance of Russia keeping the commitments that they’ve made in the context of the Minsk agreements,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, referring to accords reached between Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France on ending the separatist uprising. “This is a message that President Putin has heard from some of our European allies who’ve raised concerns with the way that combined Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine continue to destabilize that country,
and they continue to receive important military support from the Russian government,” Earnest added. “That is a clear violation of the territorial integrity of that sovereign nation.” While Moscow has been backing the separatists, Washington has been supplying financial aid, military training and nonlethal military assistance to the Ukrainian government, but has rejected calls that it provide offensive weaponry. The United States and the European Union also have imposed harsh economic sanctions on Russian staterun banks and firms and members of Putin’s inner circle in retaliation for Moscow’s support for the separatists and its annexation of the Crimea penin-
sula. The crisis in the former Soviet republic has been has been overshadowed in the past two weeks by Russia’s buildup of aircraft, advanced tanks and armored vehicles and several hundred marines at the airport near the Syrian port city of Latakia. The U.S. emphasis on Ukraine appeared aimed at telegraphing Washington’s disinterest in a proposal that Putin is expected to detail in a speech Monday to the United Nations for the creation of a coalition to fight the Islamic State that would include the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Assad’s other key foreign backer, Iran, and the United States and its European and Arab allies.
The United States sees no need for such a plan, but says it is open to Russia joining a U.S.-led coalition of more than 60 nations in conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and training and equipping Iraqi security forces. Washington is deeply concerned over the Russian military deployment near the Syrian port city of Latakia. The Obama administration believes the buildup is designed to bolster Assad, who recently has suffered serious setbacks in the 4-year-old civil war. “President Obama will make clear once again that Russia doubling down on their support for the Assad regime is a losing bet,” see
PUTIN on page 3