UGS passes bills to secure proportional VSO funding, amend UGS election bylaws

The Undergraduate Senate (UGS) passed bills introduced last week to establish proportional funding for student organizations and amend UGS bylaws at its Wednesday meeting. 

The Joint Bill to Establish Proportional Funding and Equitable Cost-Sharing For Student Activities Fee-Supported Organizations aims to implement a cost-sharing system for student activities fee-supported organizations. Undergraduate and graduate students will pay for student organizations and activities in proportion to how much each group participates in or benefits from them. 

Since its introduction in UGS last Wednesday, the bill has been amended to address graduate student concerns about the definition and measurement of joint participation. The UGS also added measures to review how fees are being levied on undergraduate and graduate students.

“We are making it especially clear to graduate students that the bill does not mandate them to any fee increase. The bill is mandating them to the philosophy of joint participation,” said UGS Chair David Sengthay ’26. The bill passed unanimously. 

The UGS also passed the Bill to Amend the Undergraduate Senate Bylaws on Class President Governance and Election Provisions. In the past, class presidents have not been part of the ASSU, meaning each new team of class presidents had to determine and communicate its responsibilities without any established protocol. This bill aims to standardize the role of class presidents so that administration and students establish agreed-upon expectations for class presidents. The bill dictates there be four presidents across all classes and defines their responsibilities and goals. 

The Stanford Alumni Association (SAA) and advisors to the senior, junior and sophomore class presidents contributed feedback to the bill, which passed unanimously. 

The UGS also heard presentations from political action co-chairs Intisar Alkhatib ’28 and Laila Ali ’28 on the Free Speech Working Group and budget updates after the abolition of the Neighborhood System. 

According to Alkhatib and Ali, Assistant Vice Provost Cheryl Brown said the neighborhood system was funded via a three-year commitment from President Jonathan Levin’s discretionary budget. The commitment ended last year, and the administration did not renew it in light of negative student feedback.

“Students really didn’t like the residency requirements, and they actually manifested to be very limiting to how students can navigate their Stanford journey,” said Alkhatib. However, many students enjoyed the events tied to the neighborhood system, such as Llamas on the Lawn, and did not realize that the dissolution of the Neighborhood System would cause the loss of these funded events as well. 

Alkhatib and Ali also engaged in conversations with Associate Vice Provost for Inclusion, Community and Integrative Learning Samuel Santos and Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life Bernadette Meyler as part of the Free Speech Working Group. 

They advocated for clarifications that protests do not need to register for use of White Plaza, while tabling at White Plaza requires registration. They also asked that information on organizing marches be more accessible and the administration revisit the noise policy.

“I’m really excited to find places that we can have more amplified noise in, because while we say that we can use White Plaza any time, amplified noise is necessary when people are hosting a rally for a cause,” said Ali. 

Associate Director of Student Organizations Pete Cerneka is organizing a pilot program called Student Collectives through which students can reserve spaces to protest without being registered Voluntary Student Organizations (VSOs). 

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