The Associated Students of Madison Student Council approved Wednesday the creation of a new grassroots committee to involve students in campus sustainability efforts.
The Sustainability Committee, which launches next semester, will create campaigns aimed at improving the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s environmental sustainability, some of which could include encouraging campus to recycle and be energy efficient.
Former ASM Freshman Rep. Collin Higgins, who proposed the Sustainability Committee earlier this month, said in last week’s council meeting many students are looking for a more formal way to address these environmental concerns on campus.
According to Higgins, committee members will spend much of next semester campaigning and organizing the committee for fall 2013, at which point the committee will begin paying a chair to formally run its sustainability efforts.
In order to create the committee, the proposal needed approval from two consecutive council meetings. It was passed in its second round of voting Wednesday by a 23-3 vote.
Also in the meeting, council took its first vote on the 2013-’14 ASM internal budget.
Council approved an amendment to the budget, proposed by Rep. David Gardner, which would include an additional $500 to fund programming for ASM’s grassroots committees’ various events and campaigns.
Council also approved an additional amendment, proposed by ASM Chair Andrew Bolovsky, to create an ad hoc committee for finding candidates and allocating funding for Varsity Day, an end of the year speaker’s event that brought Neil deGrasse Tyson to campus last year.
Varsity Day was also brought up in last week’s session by several students in open forum who all showed an interest in bringing a big name speaker to campus at the end of the year, saying a renowned speaker would be a good way to celebrate UW-Madison.
Gardner, who is also the ASM Press Office Director, said the Varsity Day amendment would be a collective-action aiming to solicit input and funds from other campus organizations and departments for the high-profile speaker they wish to bring.
Council approved the full internal budget, which will now go to the Student Services Finance Committee next week for inspection and approval.
Student Council will then have the final vote on the budget that will need to be approved by a two-thirds majority later this session.
