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| Turks And Armenians "Agree To Disagree" | ||||||
| The Turkish and Armenian Student Associations have finally put their differences aside and "agreed to disagree," a conclusion that took more than five months to arrive upon. | ||||||
| The A.S. Senate voted today on a resolution opposing crimes against humanity, ethnic atrocities and human rights violations, an issue that has been the epitome of discussion in the Senate since last semester. �Last October, Armenian Student Association President Shant Baboujian appealed to the Senate urging them to pass a resolution denouncing the Armenian genocide that he said took place between 1915 and 1923 at the hands of the Young Turk government. | ||||||
| The original resolution, which passed with no opposition, was revisited this semester when Isil Rahmanian, president of the Turkish Student Association, urged the Senate to rescind this original ruling. �Since then, the two groups have come together to form a new resolution, a resolution that passed Wednesday in the Senate chambers. | ||||||
| Sen. Morgan Wheeler, when discussing the final draft of the new resolution, said that a small number of statements were removed from the first draft that seemed to be "pointing the finger." �Wheeler assured that the content of the document remained unchanged and thanked the Senate, as well as Vice President Guido Piotti, for working together in the hopes of settling this age-old dispute. | ||||||
| "I'm really happy that we came together, put this to rest, and eased [the Turkish Student Association's] minds," Wheeler said. | ||||||
| In other news, Richard Haller, executive director of Associated Students Inc., presented the Senate with its 2004-05 A.S.I. operating budget, with a special focus on the stipends that senators have received in previous years. �This year the senators will not receive the stipend of $250 due to a legal discrepancy that was discovered. | ||||||
| A referendum was included on this year's student government elections that would allow senators to receive the stipend again, this time with the full blessing of the voting students. �The referendum passed, but it is still unclear if senators would receive any stipends for this year. �Wheeler noted that the Senate stipend of $250 is one of the smallest rewarded. �"If you took the number of hours a senator works as three hours a week, multiply that by the number of weeks we are here, and pay the senators 6.75-per-hour, minimum wage, you come to $325, more than the stipend itself," Wheeler said. | ||||||
| When it came to voting on the budget, however, Haller made it clear that senators who would be serving next year could not vote on the issue, since it would constitute a conflict of interest. �Several ideas were discussed, including issuing a retroactive stipend payment for this year, but the issue remained unresolved. | ||||||
| Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2004, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | ||||||
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