Student Senate passed a bill Sunday night granting a $3,000 funding request UND student and event representative Landon Bahl to a motivational’s teams visit to campus.

The #besomebody team will be on campus Nov. 8.

Bahl will receive $1,000 from the #besomebody team to help cover costs, but the additional funds from senate will help him to promote the event through television, radio and posters, renting a tent and renting the Ralph Engelstad Arena for the event.

Although Bahl had previously talked about getting an additional motivational speaker at his last presentation to senate a few weeks ago, that will not to happen and reduced the cost of the event by $7,000.

Student Body President Nick Creamer spoke in favor of the event.

“This is a new idea, and it’s feared by individuals if it goes wrong,” Creamer said. “But it’s in our best interests to step outside our comfort zone. For where we’ve spent money before, this is a reasonable amount.”

Several senators had concerns about allocating the money for this event because Bahl didn’t have a detailed budget as to where the money was going.

Others didn’t think the documents were necessary.

“I want to point out that earlier this year we allocated $10,000 on a trip for five people, and we had no details for that at the time,” Senator Josh Nelson said.

Some senators also wanted to table the bill for another week in order to talk to their constituents about funding the event.

After an hour of discussion, the bill was passed.

Other bills passed

Senate passed three other bills at the meeting.

The first was on a bill regarding the North Dakota Student Association conferences that are held each month in different locations around the state. All members of senate are encouraged to attend at least one meeting per semester. The next meeting will be held Oct. 24-25 in Grand Forks.

Another bill was passed in regard to the student fee allocation process. Next week, there will be two forums open to all students to give their opinions and views on how their student feaes are spent. The bill was passed with the hope of keeping the process open and transparent to all students.

The last resolution passed was to support the non-discrimination housing ordinance amendment adopted by the city of Grand Forks. The ordinance was put in place to help stop discrimination around the city for all people.

Executive conference

The five executive team members who traveled to Washington D.C. took time at the end of the meeting to share their thoughts and experiences on their participation in the National Student Government Summit put on by the American Student Government Association.

All members said they took a lot of relevant ideas out of the different meetings and roundtable discussions — some that applied to them and others that weren’t as important.

“We are fortunate to have a say in the student fee process,” Creamer said. “I spent a lot of time fielding questions from others who have no say in the process.”

Governmental Affairs Commissioner John Mitzel talked about the success of the Tuesday Two’s and the praise he received from ASGA workshop leaders.

“They commended us on the Tuesday Two’s program,” Mitzel said. “They said they are even going to include it in their future workshops.”

Mitzel said one of the biggest things he learned was senate needs to develop a strategic plan for what it wants to be working towards in the future.

“We need to identify our strengths and weaknesses, our opportunities and threats,” Mitzel said. “We need to see where we want to be in the future.”

Megan Hoffman is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].