The last Union Council (UC) meet of the academic year 2017-18 was scheduled to be held at 17:00 on the 20th of April. There were three main points on the agenda – the review of the membership of the Department of Sponsorship and Marketing (Sponz) in the CoStAA (Council for Students’ Academic Activities), the review of the status of the Department of External Affairs (DExA) as a minor department, and certain amendments to the APOGEE Charter. Both Sponz and DExA required a simple majority amongst the APOGEE Review Committee (ARC) and the UC. Their co-ordinators were given 5 minutes to defend themselves.
In Sponz’s pitch, Anushka, the CoStAAn for APOGEE 2019 described how important Sponz was to the functioning of every fest and how co-ordinators used the capital generated by Sponz to organise and publicise events. She went on to quote this year’s figures, which exceeded their target by two and a half lakhs. She also highlighted the department’s collaboration with the Indian Navy, resulting in the Navy’s agreement to start recruiting directly from BITS from the coming year. Sponz also directed efforts towards the opening of three new PS stations and organised the Exxon Hackathon – the biggest of its kind at BITS. The CoStAAn of the Department of Controls, Himangshu Baid, put in a point stating how important it was for Sponz to remain in the CoStAA. He felt that keeping Sponz in the CoStAA would provide them with the necessary information and expertise needed to approach and negotiate with potential sponsors. Bharatratna Puli, closed the discussion by informing the GBM that the CoStAA believed that Sponz ought to remain in it.
Next, the DExA spokesperson described the department’s achievements over the past year. He spoke about Aarohan, an examination conducted for students in senior-secondary school, which serves the dual purpose of popularizing the fest and generating finances. They also conducted mini-APOGEE in places like Thapar University and Anna University.
An amendment to the APOGEE Charter was then proposed. The amendment would establish a unified lecture series and shift the responsibility of reviewing guest lectures from solely the CoStAAn of the Department of Paper Evaluation and Presentation (PEP) to the entire CoStAA.
While PEP did not oppose the idea of a unified lecture series, they were not on board with the second part of the amendment. They felt that the change being proposed was already accommodated in the current wording of the charter and was hence unnecessary. In response, the SU representative said that the amendment was proposed to allow a student body to approach any member of the CoStAA that they were comfortable with, and not just the CoStAAn of PEP. They explained how it would not make sense if the decision to invite a speaker during APOGEE was taken by the CoStAA in the absence of the CoStAAn of PEP, as the amendment would now allow.
Following this discussion, Himangshu initiated a motion to put PEP under review. He compared PEP being in CoStAA to the Department of Live Events being in the Students’ Council for Cultural Activities (StuCCA). The grounds for this motion lay in the conflict of interest with respect to the budget, the problems in publicity and scheduling, and the unnecessary involvement of PEP in several aspects of APOGEE which created a high potential for disaster . The President however felt that the problems faced this APOGEE were a collective fault of the CoStAA and simply singling out a department might be a rash decision. PEP attempted to counter the points raised against them but ended up accusing the motion of being “politically motivated.”
The Union Council meet was held after this. The President addressed the accusations of the SU becoming a fest-centric association, by listing out their other achievements and initiatives this semester. He spoke about the Fitness Workshop, Passport Camp, revamping of FoodKing, extension of MB redi timings, initiation of a BITS Chapter of GSoC, creation of a student PSD team, and the establishment of Javed Habib salon (which is expected to begin functioning next semester). Towards the end, he touched upon the topic of rampant propagation of misinformation about the current SU and alleged that the Election Commission was a part of this.
Finally, the members of the ARC voted on the four motions – Sponz and DExA’s continuation under review, the passing of the amendment, and PEP being placed under review. Sponz and DExA were not voted out of their respective positions, PEP was put under review and the amendments were passed. After the announcement of the results, FitBITS, the running club, made a proposal to come under the SU. After a unanimous vote in their favour, FitBITS will now remain under review as a SU club for the next three semesters.