Student Union Treasury reversed its rule of refusing repeat speaker appeals after a straw poll of members at its meeting on Tuesday. The need to change the standard arose out of complications from the new SU Speaker Series, which was created to encourage groups to appeal for high-cost speakers at the beginning of the first semester rather than throughout the year.

Heightened competition marked the latest round of Student Union internal elections, held Tuesday and Wednesday night. The elections established the teams that will lead SU Treasury and Senate through the spring election cycle.

This week, 37 students will be running for 24 seats in an unusually contested set of Student Union elections. Three constitutional amendments and half the seats in SU Senate and Treasury will be up for a campus-wide online vote. Elections will take place from Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 8 a.m. until Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 5 p.m.

Legislation intended to prevent a repeat of last year’s Bristol Palin fiasco failed to pass Student Union Treasury by one vote on Thursday. The constitutional amendment would have made student referendums faster and more effective. The final vote was 11-6, but it needed a two-thirds margin to pass.

Reversing its decision from two weeks ago, Student Union Senate narrowly voted in favor of cutting nearly a quarter of its seats. The change, pending majority approval by SU Treasury and two-thirds of the student body, would cut six seats—four from the College of Arts & Sciences, one from the engineering school and one from the business school. Senators J.R.

Student Union Senate failed to pass an amendment intended to cut its size by six members—even though the majority of senators voted in favor of it at a meeting Wednesday night. The change proposed cutting Senate’s size from 28 to 22 members.

Although Student Union continued to reject appeals last week due to budgetary constraints, an account outside of the group’s general operating budget continues to grow. A savings account, comprised of funds that were allocated to student groups but were never spent, has accrued to more than $300,000.

Student Life sat down with newly elected Freshman Class Council President Emma Tyler on Wednesday. Here is what we learned about her and her goals for her new position.

Emma Tyler will be the next president of the Freshman Class Council after earning more than 30 percent of the votes in the election. The results were announced Wednesday evening. Tyler’s entire slate, “Slate Louis,” was elected.

Student Union Treasury voted to allocate $105,569 to bring musician John Legend, actress Sofia Vergara and law professor Amy Chua to campus in a meeting flooded by over 100 students Tuesday night. Seven appeals were not funded, including ones for Sanjay Gupta, Garry Kasparov and Ashley Judd. SU Treasury also rejected appeals for Djimon Hounsou, [...]