ASUSU party in Merrill Library canceled

A university-wide party, orginally scheduled to be held in the Merrill Library Jan. 27 has been canceled due to fire-code violations.

Laurel Evans, ASUSU Programming Vice President, announced the cancelation Tuesday during the Executive Council regular meeting.

Because the building is scheduled to be demolished, its sprinkling system is no longer functioning, Evans said.

However, Evans assured the council that another party is being planned and will be announced in the coming weeks.

Originally the party was going to be held after the men’s basketball game. Activities such as live bands, wall painting and dancing would have been present.

Other items discussed at the meeting included whether or not the council should be allowed to support candidates who will be running for an ASUSU student government position this semester.

Currently, there is no formal written policy. Guidelines are determined by the council each year, said Public Relations Director Holly Scott.

“We try to run elections as the real world runs them,” Scott said.

Members of the council discussed whether making specific rules of how ASUSU officials can support candidates could be detrimental or not.

“Unless we have a strong opinion one way or another, we should just let the race run its course,” ASUSU President Quinn Millet said.

In years past, there have been problems with ASUSU officials sponsoring specific candidates through e-mail and other forms of communication.

“We need to be 100 percent one way or 100 percent in the other in my personal opinion,” Administrative Assistant Joseph Ure said.

Legislation concerning the topic will be put on the agenda during the council’s next meeting Jan. 24. Election packets are now available for students interested in running.

In other items, the council discussed ASUSU goals for the year 2006, including legislation that would only allow professors to order textbooks that have been on the market for at least one year.

“There are not enough books,” Evans said. “Textbooks don’t change that much in a year.”

This semester, many students were not able to buy some of the textbooks for their classes because they were new editions and not enough of them were in print, Evans said.

Another idea was to take steps to making the Financial Aid Office more student-friendly. Athletics Vice President Rosie Strong said she has heard of students that were misinformed of the financial aid situations which delayed their schooling.

One solution to the problem would be to have student employees be better trained about the rules and regulations involved with financial aid at the university.

Decisions on goals will be made discussed later.

-mmackay@cc.usu.edu