NYU’s Student Government Assembly discussed violence against women in Iran, its upcoming budget proposal to the university and a potential framework for using its new million-dollar Initiative Fund at a meeting on Thursday, March 2.

The student government called for the university to offer more support to Muslim and Iranian students, heard contract faculty union organizers speak about their recent efforts, listed budget requests for the 2023-24 academic year and discussed more details about how students can access the new fund.

Support for students affected by the conflict in Iran

In a letter to President Andrew Hamilton and incoming President Linda Mills, the student government condemned the continued detainment and executions of protestors in Iran after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in police custody last September. The letter also called for NYU to provide more support to students who belong to cultures and religions that are more closely connected to the conflict, including adding more prayer spaces for Muslim students and prioritizing Iranian students’ financial needs.

Commuter Student Council Constituency President Mya Sato, who presented the letter to the student government, said there have been issues with students not respecting gathering spaces.

“We’ve been trying to solidify our prayer corner, and ensure that the cleaning process and privacy is respected,” Sato said. “We just come into a continual problem of the space not being regarded as a prayer space.” 

Budget recommendations for the 2023-24 academic year

Each year, NYU’s student government makes funding requests to the university for the coming year, which includes its operating budget. The organization will present their requests for the coming year to the Financial Affairs Committee of the University Senate — which deliberates the university’s financial and budgetary policies — on March 22. 

The Student Government Assembly hopes to receive funding to provide free and accessible abortion medication to NYU students through the Student Health Center. The SHC is currently considering stocking mifepristone, a medication used for abortion, in their pharmacy, and is looking into closing insurance gaps to improve students’ abortion coverage through Wellfleet, the university health care plan. 

The student government also requested that NYU provide a tuition discount to all Indigenous students whose ancestral lands are now a part of New York state for their entire time at the university. Currently, Indigenous students are eligible for a tuition discount through the Lenape Scholarship, but only through their first year.

Among other funding requests from the student government were financial support for required class materials, for its operating budget and stipends to reflect inflation and a lower minimum meal plan requirement for first-year students.

The Student Senators Council is also calling for NYU to create a student concerns hotline that will direct students to the right administrator that can help them with their issue.

“NYU has a lot of resources, but often it’s hard to find those resources or access them — you don’t know where to go, you don’t know how to get to certain resources,” said James Collett, the Student Government Assembly’s director of finance. “This would kind of take a ‘hub with many spokes’ model, the idea being that you could contact this central concern line, and then it would push your concern outward to the proper party who could address it.”

An update on the student government’s million-dollar fund

The Student Government Assembly outlined a potential way to allocate its million-dollar fund, which will be available for use in the fall. The Initiative Fund’s working group, a team of student government members creating a framework for the million-dollar fund, explained that students and groups will be able to make proposals to use the fund and approval will be overseen by a development committee made up of student government representatives. 

A subcommittee will work with the proposal’s creators to bring in NYU community members with expertise in the area of the proposal. The completed proposal will then go to a steering committee of Student Government Assembly members for review, after which the student government will vote on it. 

The suggested minimum requirements proposals must meet to be voted on include being large scale university projects, exceeding 1% of the fund allotment in the case of multi-year projects, and planning to be in effect for at least two years.

Student government representatives will vote on finalized bylaws for the fund at their next meeting, which will take place on March 26. Student Government Assembly Chair Ron Hall emphasized that the guidelines are still subject to changes until they are voted on. Hall told WSN he wants to avoid bureaucracy becoming a barrier to students and groups on campus hoping to use the fund.

“The amount, that’s still in progress,” Hall said. “We’re still waiting on that to be sort of signed, sealed, delivered, but we want to ensure that the moment that it is, we already have a framework up and running where it’s like, boom, let’s play ball.”

Contact Cora Snow at [email protected].