All-Campus Senator Nikolai Sublett addressed the ASWSU Senate Wednesday evening to discuss representation, corruption and presentation.

Sublett said after he was approached by students from Myanmar struggling to afford housing and nearing homelessness, ASWSU President Brian Patrick told him there was nothing he could do. 

“I went to the ASWSU president to talk about these students and he leaned back in his chair and said, ‘look there’s nothing we can do, it’s not really our problem,’” Sublett said. “Fun fact: it was something we could do, I did it, they’re now in school.”

Sublett said the Senate never received an explanation about why two officers were fired last semester, which violates bylaws. 

There were four vacancies after those two officers were fired. Three of the four spots were filled by members of Patrick’s fraternity, Sublett said. 

Looking at the winners of any larger Instagram giveaways, Sublett claims all winners were either members of Patrick’s fraternity or friends of members. 

“This is occupational fraud,” Sublett said. “People pay tuition dollars for ASWSU. Part of our tuition is an ASWSU fund. We cannot use this money to buy our friends presents.” 

Sublett also said members of ASWSU have been heard speaking poorly of other officers in their public office and said the things he has heard are borderline homophobic. 

Sublett refused to take questions before leaving the meeting early. 

Other business

Jessica Sheets, ASWSU director of diversity, inclusion, and veteran affairs, said she has been working to plan the annual multicultural banquet and moving it to the fall semester because of conflicts with other events scheduled at the same time. 

Moving the banquet to a weekend with a home football game will increase attendance and donations, she said. Most of the other plans remain the same despite the rescheduling. 

Sheets said she has partnered with Fatimah Albaqshi, ASWSU director of community affairs, to make an upcoming food truck event more inclusive by inviting multicultural committees to table during the event. 

ASWSU deputy directors of communications Bine Traore and Ashtyn Gates spoke to the Senate about what they have been working on recently. 

The ASWSU Instagram received 2,000 times the amount of interaction it has seen in the past, Traore said. 

They have also been working to promote upcoming and current events such as Restaurant Week, Gates said. 

Transportation Services Director Chris Boyan said the Transit Advisory Group’s proposed 5% increase to the transit fee would result in students paying $37.88 per semester instead of the current $36.08. 

The fee would be used to promote the student transit program that is offered to WSU students, he said. 

The Senate moved to table voting on the increase until the next meeting because they did have a quorum.