Members of the Dean of Students office spoke and an amendment to a club funding bylaw was approved at the Feb. 6 Undergraduate Student Government general council meeting.

Dean of Students Linda Baughman and Assistant Dean of Students Leah Fulton spoke about the work their office is doing on student retention, and services available to first-generation students and students facing crisis.

“I often say to students, if you have a need or a concern, if you’re not sure where to start, you can always start with me,” Fulton said.

The office is working on building focus groups for first-generation college students “to understand what’s working and what’s not working,” for those students.

“Sometimes we miss opportunities to learn from students so we’re hoping to be able to leverage that,” Fulton said.

Vice President of Financial Affairs Derek Nauman proposed an amendment to the club funding and probation bylaw regarding the club service requirement. Each club is required to do one volunteer project a semester.

The amended bylaw reads “any club or organization on probation for not meeting a service requirement may not receive full funding from USG.” This was unanimously passed by the general council.

Clubs and organizations on probation will now receive up to $250 in the first semester of their probation to complete their service requirement. If the requirement is met in the first semester, then they may apply for half their regular funding in the second semester of their probation.

“The idea behind this is that it encourages clubs in the first semester to meet the requirement and to understand how that works, especially if they’re new…and the second semester it allows them to still receive something,” Nauman said.

The old bylaw stated that “any club or organization on probation cannot receive funding from USG, except under certain special circumstances,” and that clubs on probation can appeal “to receive up to $250 for one semester per academic year for basic club functions.”

Spring elections were announced and will occur on Feb. 18-20 for legislative affairs senator, senior class senator, neighborhood senator, spirituality chair, sophomore class senator and residential senator. In the executive board, the Vice President of Public Affairs position is open as well.

Justin Amaker can be reached at justin.amaker@stthomas.edu.