The UA wants you to go to the Palestra a little more often.
On Sunday night, the Undergraduate Assembly met to discuss ways to improve school spirit. This was the final session for this elected body, and the newly elected representatives will start again in April with internal meetings.
The main item of business was a discussion introduced by College freshman and UA College representative Arjun Mahadevan. He wanted to address what he saw as declining school spirit with a novel idea.
After watching a clip of a Boston University coach offering one fan free tuition on making a half-court shot, Mahadevan wrote in a discussion paper, “What if Penn offered this during basketball games … so they’re even more motivated to bring people out?”
UA President-elect and College and Wharton junior Abe Sutton said, “To have it [pay] for tuition, I don’t think it’s feasible.” His comment represented a main point in the discussion — that realistically, the money for the project was hard to find.
One of Mahadevan’s ideas was to raise money through buying insurance against the shot succeeding. He went on to quote numbers from insurance companies.
Other funding ideas included alumni support and student government sponsorship. “I really like the idea of bringing in a corporate sponsor for this,” added outgoing UA representative and College freshman Varun Menon.
Eventually, the discussion expanded into general thoughts on school spirit. Nursing and College senior and outgoing UA representative Spencer Stubbs said, “I feel like this should be a Class Board project and not a UA one.”
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The discussion did not result in any new resolutions and the body voted to end the topic. “I’m not trying to change the culture with one discussion paper,” Mahadevan closed.
Other topics discussed in the meeting included the problem of Fling safety in the Quadrangle. Engineering freshman and UA representative Pratyusha Gupta said, “I feel like the talk about Fling safety has only been about restrictions on people, not about actual safety information, like ‘Don’t take molly.’”
The next meeting of the UA will be a transition meeting on April 7. At that meeting, the newly elected representatives will vote for internal positions like UA Speaker and Secretary. In the weeks following, the new body will begin to conduct regular business.
