Senate spent most of its March 8 meeting discussing an allocation.

The allocation was for the Baptist Student Union to take two trips during spring break. One group will go to Algiers, La. right outside New Orleans, and the other will go to Arlington.

The group going to Algiers will be helping with Hurricane Katrina disaster relief, and the group going to Arlington will help run a soup kitchen that feeds and shelters underprivileged children.

The original allocation was for $491. But the finance committee suggested $700.

Candice Dickinson, Senate treasurer, said this was because the two groups travel expenses amount to more than $1,200.

The discussion about the trip lasted around 18 minutes and ended with Grahm Dickinson motioning to allocate $1,000.

The reason the discussion took so long was because a handful of senators thought allocating money to the BSU would be supporting its religion and would show some bias in Senate’s spending.

But the other side’s argument was not only are the students from the BSU going to be helping a good cause, but also every student organization on campus has a right to allocate money from Senate no matter what its affiliation.

The motion for $1,000 was passed.

Senate also allocated $800 to the History Club to take a trip to St. Louis.

There the club will go to the Art Museum, the Science Center and the OMNIMAX theater. There will be a Titanic exhibit at the Science Center, and an underwater tour of the Titanic at the OMNIMAX theater.

At the meeting Eric Norris, Senate president, announced Hector Amaya resigned as parliamentarian, and Senate will try to ride out the semester without appointing another one.

Norris also thanked all of the senators who helped with the boot block for the Red Cross last Friday.

Senate also received a thank-you letter from the Model United Nations for Senate’s help with the trips to St. Louis and Chicago.

In total there were 29 senators and four officers present at the meeting. The senators that were not present included Whitney Souza, Valerie German, Donovan Mays and Terrie Yazzie.