The Senate discussed the CU-wide ChatGPT, passed a bill to fund 2,000 fentanyl strips and reallocated $50,000 from reserves to active club and student organization funding at the Senate meeting on March 8.
OpenAI contract censure
SGA expressed their displeasure in the Board of Regent’s $2 million OpenAI contract, citing sustainability concerns, the secrecy surrounding the contract, the program’s cost and the lack of transparency and student, faculty and staff input.
Additionally, Student-at-Large Hunter Roren, representing Teri Kear, senator of education, stated that they believed students they had talked to were not in favor of AI in academia.
“If we are to represent the student body, basically every UCCS student I’ve talked to seems like they’d be opposed to this,” Roren said.
The OpenAI contract allows students, staff and faculty members to use a premium version of ChatGPT Edu at no cost. It is three years long, although it’s renewed annually.
During discussion, Senator-at-Large Logan Smith stated that the recent vote of censure of the Executive Leadership Team from the Faculty Assembly also cited a lack of transparency.
Senator-at-Large, Catalina Clay, explained that the $2 million for the first-year was funded by the CU Foundation, rather than an individual CU school. However, funding for year two and three will be determined by each campus.
Clay questioned why the foundation was spending money on the premium version of a free service, arguing the premium model does not offer notable features worthy of a contract.
Senator-at-Large, Ethan Nordman agrees with the decision to censure, but he acknowledged that AI is the future and should be explored in academia.
According to Vice President Isabella Polombo, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said he believed AI projects were destroying the world in a recent conference. The contract also does not consider that faculty and staff have been brainstorming solutions for AI in academia.
Smith is drafting a bill to address the Senate’s next steps.
Fentanyl test strips
Asher Early, senator of sustainability, proposed a bill to fund 2,000 fentanyl test strips for the Wellness Center and MOSAIC for $2,158.20.
Zee O’Donnell, SGA office and marketing manager, stated that Chrissie Bailey, the director of wellness promotion, did not receive any fentanyl test strips ordered a year ago, so the Wellness Center is running low in supplies.
According to Polombo, judging from data that reflects an increase in access to fentanyl test strips after the order last year, MOSAIC, at least, received the strips. She theorized that there is a communication gap with the Wellness Center.
The Senate passed the bill to allocate test strips to MOSAIC and the Wellness Center but briefly discussed that fentanyl tests and other drug harm reduction resources should be made available in around campus.
Increasing the budget advisory committee budget
The Senate passed a bill to allocate $50,000 from the Carry Forward Fund, which is the budget advisory committee (BAC) reserves, to BAC’s active funds.
The money will be used to sponsor student club and organization activities throughout the spring semester since current funding is running low. The Carry Forward Fund will have $140,000 remaining after this bill, however, any unspent funds at the end of the spring semester will be reallocated to the reserves.
According Walat Gozeh, speaker of the Senate, the figure was determined by Aidan Burke, SGA president, and Josh Mattias, the director of finance, based on historical data.
The Senate discussed using the budget data from spring semester to inform the draft of the budget next semester in order to avoid reallocations near the end of the year.
Graphic via The Scribe archive.