ASUN holds first meeting, discusses year’s plans

The Association of Students of the University of Nebraska held its first meeting of the 2009-2010 school year Wednesday.

Most of the meeting was getting the senate caught up on what ASUN worked on during the summer as well as discussing plans for the upcoming school year.

President Megan Collins, a senior business major, updated the senate about the work being done on several facilities and encouraged senators to promote the readership program.

Collins also briefly talked about 475-RIDE, describing ASUN's work to make the program more effective.

"Hopefully we can see an increase in riders," she said.

One of the platforms the CONNECT Party ran on was increasing nightlife on campus. Collins said there are several nighttime weekend events scheduled and told senators to encourage students to attend.

Internal Vice-president Brian Coburn, a senior biochemistry major, talked to the senate about collaborating with other student groups, such as the Residence Hall Association and the Environmental Resource Center, to promote sustainability, another one of the party's platforms.

ASUN is working with other groups to recycle trash at the stadium after games as well as with recycling at tailgates, Coburn said.

ASUN is also looking into participating in Recycle Mania, a 10-week competition starting in January between universities and colleges to see who does the most recycling.

Coburn said ASUN hopes to get funding so UNL can work with RHA and the ERC to promote the event and enter UNL into the competition.

"The university recycles about 35 percent of its waste, which is pretty high," he said.

The problem with this, Coburn said, was most of the recycling came from faculty and staff.

Besides looking into Recycle Mania, Coburn said he hopes to get students involved locally in recycling efforts.

"We're trying to hook students up with citywide (sustainability) efforts," he said.

External Vice-president Amanda Crook, a senior political science major, reported on Big Red Welcome events last weekend.

"Good job with Big Red," she said. "We had a really strong presence there,"

Crook then talked about plans for maintaining and increasing tradition at UNL, including a stadiumwide blackout, campus building descriptions and a university-sponsored list of activities for students to do.

ASUN also discussed plans to continuing promoting textbook adoptions and looking into a Reading Day during Dead Week before closing out the meeting.

"A good first meeting," Coburn said, before adjourning the senate.

kimbuckley@dailynebraskan.com