UA votes to caution government against Pell Grant cuts

On Sunday night, Undergraduate Assembly members voted to sign a letter cautioning the government against cutting Pell Grant funds — a resource that benefits around 16 percent of Penn students.

“We think that this is something that effects a large number of students here at Penn,” UA Vice President and Wharton senior Faye Chang said.

According to Inside Higher Ed, the grant cuts will reduce the fund by $2.3 billion and “make deep cuts to colleges that serve minorities.”

“I think this is something we can all get behind,” UA President Tyler Ernst, a Engineering and Wharton senior, said.

Members also voted to amend the “Holiday Project” email, which will be sent out to professors at the beginning of every year to remind them of religious observances during the school year. The new email will include an attachment containing University policy on this issue.

There is a “much better chance” that the amended email will be approved by the Council of Undergraduate Deans, Ernst said. The project is “far from being complete,” though, Wharton sophomore Lisa Xu wrote in a UA brief.

UA representatives also discussed recent changes to dining plan regulation, whereby students with unlimited meals on their dining plans are not allowed to swipe in more than ten guests per semester.

One of the main reasons people get the ‘Anytime’ unlimited meal plan is to swipe friends in, said College sophomore Ernest Owens, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist. Students who opted for the unlimited swipes are now disappointed, he added.

Ernst clarified the issue, saying that dining halls always had such regulation, though it had not been enforced in the past. The “underlying issue” was that students were unaware of this regulation until recently, when they could no longer switch their meal plans, he added.

The UA Dining Advisory Board members agreed to bring up the issue with Bon Appetit. “We’ll definitely talk about it,” Wharton sophomore Tiffany Zhu said.

UA members also discussed strategies to introduce lockers into the Engineering building. They debated between a rental system, which would accommodate 200 students, or a “first come first serve” locker system, similar to the one at Pottruck gymnasium.

The rental system’s cost would be “a deterrent,” Engineering sophomore Lindsay Tsai said. “It’s kind of steep, from my perspective,” she added.

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