“Senators, please raise your hand if you have ever had your hair cut,” Communication junior and Associated Student Government Senator Ryan Lien announced at Wednesday’s ASG meeting. “Now keep your hand raised if you like paying above market price for haircuts or listening to music.”
Among the new resolutions introduced at the meeting was Lien’s Resources in Student Entrepreneurship Bill, which promoted the creation of a Student Entrepreneur Directory. The proposed RISE website would serve to connect students with peers who have side jobs ranging from barbers to DJs.
Lien said an entrepreneurship directory would be a feather in Northwestern’s cap that would make an interesting tidbit for tour guides to share to potential students. He said he was motivated to pitch the idea after realizing he was not a fan of Evanston’s barbers.
“For (my) first two years at Northwestern, I had no idea who to go to for haircuts,” Lien said. “I knew (that) a lot of people cut hair, but I wasn’t sure of anyone in particular who cut hair.”
Weinberg junior and Speaker of the Senate Kaitlyn Salgado-Alvarez introduced a bill of her own — encouraging the University to introduce American Sign Language classes.
The resolution has been in the works for a while and is very personal to Salgado-Alvarez.
“My sophomore year, I ran for Senate with the purpose of getting ASL courses at Northwestern,” Salgado-Alvarez said. “Both my parents are Deaf, so I’m fluent, but I’ve never had a chance to use (ASL) in an academic setting.”
Salgado-Alvarez’s top priority is to get her bill passed swiftly, she said. Although there were efforts to establish an ASL program at NU in the early 2000s, she said none of them were successful.
NU not having an ASL program is significant, she said, as all other Big Ten schools currently have one. ASL is also the third-most used language in the United States.
Another introduced bill came from an inconvenience that Weinberg sophomore James Baer personally faced.
“I’m in an a capella group, so I’ve always wanted a place to go practice,” Baer said. “Most colleges allow (all) students to access their practice rooms, but we don’t do that.”
The Bienen School of Music has 134 practice rooms, which remain locked to those who are not music majors unless a special Google Form request is completed. Baer’s bill will make practice rooms open to all students, regardless of school.
Later in the meeting, during Executive Board reports, officers discussed ongoing initiatives. One initiative is a legal resources committee student guide for those facing landlord-tenant disputes; another initiative is a housing committee proposal for new affinity group spaces in houses currently occupied by offices that will be vacated when they move to the Donald P. Jacobs Center in 2026.
Other current committee projects include a “Know Your Rights” handbook for students, as well as a public, easily-accessible list of all NU websites taken down in light of the Trump administration’s DEI crackdown.
The meeting closed with an encouragement for new senator applications, as there are currently five vacant senate seats for Weinberg and one for SESP.
Clarification: This article has been updated to refer to people with hearing impairments as “Deaf” — referring to people who use American Sign Language — not “deaf” — which refers to the audiological condition of not hearing.
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