The UA, spearheaded by UA Representatives Sakina Zaidi and Matt Feczko, has partnered with Harrison College House to offer “granny carts” for your shopping; no more lugging bags through the sleet from Fresh Grocer (check out our report)!

Anyone living in Harrison can pick up the carts from the Info Desk and sign them out for up to an hour. There are six carts in total, with a limit of one per person. Hopefully, if the program is popular, it will expand to the other high rises and eventually across all on-campus housing!

After receiving complaints from student groups whose reservations for Perelman Quad spaces (which includes Houston Hall, Williams Hall, and the ARCH) were “bumped” for other groups, the UA launched an investigation into the reservations process.

The UA passed a resolution on reservations, accepted by the Vice-Provost of University Life, which:

• Mandated the Student Government Info Session be given priority access to the Cohen Auditorium,
• Insisted that Perelman Quad not “upgrade” room reservations without prior notice and consent of groups booking rooms. Once a room is assigned, barring priority-order conflicts, that room should not be reassigned.
• In the case of reassignments, the UA asked VPUL Facilities to not reassign any room assigned to a student group without notifying the affected groups at least sixteen (16) calendar days in advance of the booking.
• Ensured that notice of early bookings for the next academic year (usually made available in March) be communicated to the UA and to SAC and distributed widely to the undergraduate population.

These policies are slated to go into effect in Fall 2009.

After a year of work from the UA, RAB, Housing Services, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Registrar, the spring move-out deadline for all residents of on-campus housing has been extended until 5pm the day after the last day of finals. This means that many more students who have exams on the last day of finals will have at least 24 hours to move out!

The short move-out time was first protested against on Facebook; the UA responded and issued a 700-person survey, which paved the way for a resolution on Move-Out in the Fall Semester of this year. After that, and extensive discussions with Housing Services, the move-out deadline was eventually moved to 5pm on the day after exams.

In addition, we will survey all undergraduate residents of the College Houses and Sansom Place on this year’s move-out process to measure the effectiveness of the change and field suggestions for further improvement. However, looking at anecdotal evidence, it appears as if the change has worked very well for all involved!

Any students with questions on the policy change or other elements of Move-Out should email moveout@exchange.upenn.edu.

Allocation to different branches in the 09-10 Budget

Every year the UA is given around $1.8 million to allocate to the branches of student government for the upcoming year – money that funds Spring Fling, major speakers, Hey Day, Sophomore Skimmer, free New York Times, and, of course, every student group on campus. Our money comes from the Trustees, and is pegged to the General Fee.

This year, of course, the economy ran into a little trouble, but the General Fee went up by 3.9% and so the UA was given an extra $67,000 to distribute. This was important; with budget cutting in every department, students can’t rely on non-student funding sources any more. Plus, the UA Budget Committee and PSG Treasurers found nearly $50,000 in savings from careful cutting of unnecessary and less popular programs.

In the end, our increase and new savings meant that:

• SAC gets another $25,000 boost to student group funding.
• SPEC got more than $28,000 extra for a better Spring Fling concert, SPEC-TRUM concert, and Fall/Spring Major Speakers.
• The UA began funding PennArts and PennGreen, two new and exciting freshman pre-orientation programs.

The full budget is online or in a printer friendly version, as you prefer. For the full low-down on the budget, check after the jump.

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The UA is confident that in the next year at least one new late-night dining facility will open around campus.

Unfortunately, owing to Philadelphia’s high crime rate, it’s very difficult for dining facilities to remain open late at night. Most recently, we saw this when the 24-hour Philly Diner on 39th and Walnut, having been the site of a fatal shooting over Winter Break in 2005 and most recently another shooting this past Spring, agreed to close its doors at 1am Sunday to Wednesday and at 2am on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

With Philly Diner’s closure, only very few vendors, such as Wawa, McDonalds and the Fresh Grocer, serve food on campus after 1am. Less than a day after the early closure deal was announced, the UA began to forcefully lobby for additional late-night options.

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