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SURFing into research

Associated Students, Inc. Board of Control began discussing a new student fund program that aims to offer funding for students conducting long-term research at the weekly BOC meeting on Tuesday.

ASI Executive Director Richard Haller noted that the idea had been conceived about seven or eight years ago as the ‘Student Undergraduate Research Fund’ (SURF), but that the revived idea would likely cover all degree-pursuing students at Cal State University Long Beach subject to the BOC’s amendments and further revisions.

The current draft of the SURF program would allow students to ask for up to $1,000 for research purposes. Students must acquire faculty support for their research, and Haller said the fund is not meant to fund term papers or other in-class activities.

The research funds are intended to allow students to undergo long-term data collection or attend workshops necessary to gain the technical expertise for their ongoing research; the BOC members will decide the specifics of what can and what cannot be funded.

Haller recommended to the BOC that a deadline be set for fund applications so that all requests could be considered together. If the BOC approves the new program, the first allocations might be made as early as spring 2015. Details of the new program are tentative and subject to change in future meetings of the BOC.

In other news, Isis Chong, a psychology graduate student under the ‘Human Factors’ option, received $400 in travel funds to attend the 2014 annual Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) meeting in Chicago from Oct. 27-31. When making her plea for the travel funds, Chong noted that several other students, including Tanaz Mirchi and Samuel Curtis, had made requests to attend the same conference last week, and had both been respectively approved.

The final agenda item of note was a discussion of what to do with the Soroptimist House.

Soroptimist House, donated to the university by the eponymous Soroptimist International, served as CSULB’s first student union. Haller noted that a $16 increase in students fees had been planned in order to invest in the Soroptimist House’s development into a new lounge area and that the cost of the project was estimated at $800,000.

The necessary funds would have been lent to ASI by the USU Board of Trustees and repaid over four years. Haller said that he, as executive director, needed approval from the BOC in order to execute the loan. Haller warned that several campus departments, including the School of Nursing, have expressed interest in expanding into the Soroptimist House. If an academic department took over the house, ASI would receive some compensation from the university, but Haller noted that this possibility required that the BOC decide whether it was worth the trouble of investing in the building if they might end up losing it in the near future.

Senator Kelsey Reyes asked whether the plan was still to use the former student union to house an expanded 24-hour study center. Haller responded that this was the plan if the current 24-hour study center proved popular with students. Treasurer Kalien Clark said, “I spend every night there [at the 24-hour study center].”

Further discussion on the Soroptimist House was tabled after that. The BOC intends to return to the issue over the following weeks as it considers what course of action to pursue next.

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