President Brundage expects low student fee increase.

This coming term, the Associated Students of Oregon State University will see a continuation of work begun fall term, such as the creation of an off-campus housing database and continued discussion around student fee levels.

According to ASOSU President Simon Brundage, this service will help students sort through their options to find reputable landlords, property management companies and roommates.

“A lot of other colleges around the country have this service already, including the University of Oregon, and I think it is about time ASOSU came up to par,” Brundage said.

Another priority is the amendment or revision of the ASOSU Constitution, which has been drafted over the past year, according to Brundage. Many of the proposed changes are grammatical, rather than substantive, which could mean that these adjustments will not be put to an all-student body vote as originally planned. In this case, a revision rather than an amendment would still need to be approved by the ASOSU Congress, Brundage added.

“If I changed how the executive branch works, that would constitute a change in the constitution and require an amendment,” Brundage said. “If we change the spelling of a word, that would not.”

One of the larger issues being reconsidered is membership in the Associated Students itself, according to Brundage. The student government’s Judicial Council—which interprets its constitution—has ruled that ASOSU only represents students who pay the Corvallis student fee, not Ecampus or OSU-Cascades students, but this decision has been appealed.

Regarding student fees, Brundage does not expect any of the 10 fee-funded units’ budgets to be rejected by Congress or himself, given the many levels of scrutiny each fee level goes through. A joint session of Congress to vote on the proposed levels for the next fiscal year will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

“The overall student fee will likely not see a large increase,” Brundage said. “I am very optimistic looking forward to the joint session.”

Winter term will also see elections for next year’s ASOSU membership. According to Brundage, with the upcoming election, him and Vice President Radhika Shah’s main goal is to ensure that any ongoing projects are continued by the next administration.

Throughout last term and his own campaign, Brundage referenced the need for more continuous updates to the ASOSU website. This task has proved challenging enough to warrant the creation of a new Cabinet position focused on website maintenance, according to Brundage.

“We aim to hire someone sometime this term,” Brundage said. “I just finished writing the position description.”