The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate's stance against a recent Penn State policy decision was officially accepted last night when USG President Galen Foulke signed a piece of legislation approved by the senate last week.

Last Tuesday, the Senate voted unanimously to take a position against the removal of the USG Supreme Court's power to officially register university student groups. The process is now handled entirely by Penn State's Office of Student Affairs.

"It's very explicit that this is Senate's belief," Foulke said. He said the legislation contained no factual errors and represented the opinion of USG senators.

"I'm not going to veto their opinion," he said.

Foulke told the Senate last night he would arrange meetings with university representatives, as well as with a Penn State lawyer to discuss the issue.

"It's nothing confrontational," he said. "It's a dialogue."

In new business last night, the Senate turned down a proposed bill to contribute $500 to Penn State's Sesquicentennial celebrations in East Halls Sen. Matt Ritsko proposed the bill and said he thought it was important that Senate recognize the historical event.

But Town Sen. Zach Merritt said the amount was too high for the Senate to afford, considering the level of funding already in place for the celebration.

"These people have a budget of $100,000," he said.

Merritt said he encouraged senators to volunteer their time, but thought the proposed donation would have put a big dent in the Senate's budget, which was about $8,400 at the beginning of last night's meeting.

The Senate also voted unanimously to approve the budget for Academic Assembly, which comes entirely from USG Senate.

"We're going to use this for the entire year," assembly President Mark Levin told the group. He said the budget was largely the same as last year's.

South Halls Sen. Vicky Cangelosi said the assembly handles important issues involving relations between students and faculty.

"If you have a real concern or a problem, Academic Assembly is where you go to address this," she said.

Cangelosi said USG Senate needed to approve the budget to keep up good relations with Academic Assembly.

"It's usually frowned upon if two groups within USG don't get along," she said.

Levin said the assembly's budget includes advertisements to promote sponsored activities and to fill vacant seats.

"We need to run a lot of ads for 'Take Your Professor to Lunch' day," he said.

Ritsko also previewed legislation for the Senate to vote on next week. He said the proposals were to amend USG Senate bylaws regarding budget.

"This here is basically outlining how we can better spend our money," he said.

One item included in the proposal is a minimum balance the Senate must keep for their budget in case of unexpected costs. Ritsko said the Senate often runs low on cash by March of each year.