The Tulane Undergraduate Assembly held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss various upcoming events, such as Earth Day, TU Verzuz and potential changes to the Student Activities Fee.

TU Verzuz is a competition event series hosted by the TUA that showcases contests, debates, tournaments and competitive performances between clubs, student organizations, fraternities and sororities, sports teams, music crews, dance groups, student occupations, majors, schools and other student groups at Tulane University. Verzuz will occur on May 2. 

Ethan Lewis, co-chair of the Student Activity Fee Allocations Council, discussed potentially increasing Student Activity fees in order to keep up with inflation. The Student Activity fee is what pays for all student organizations’ budgets. The fee, which is $120, has not changed since 2012.

“Had [the fee] increased with inflation, it would’ve been around $350 today,” Lewis said. “The people who decide what the increases are in tuition and fees are not people who are engaged in any capacity with student orgs.”

“It’s our job to be advocates for — if we are interested in it — increasing that fee to keep pace with inflation.”

TUA’s Sustainability and Divestment Committee hosted the second Tulane Environmental Action Network meeting last Sunday. This Friday, Sunrise Tulane and Tulane Environmental Action Network will host an Earth Day march from Pocket Park to Gibson Hall. Sunrise Tulane is a coalition of students who aim to fight the climate crisis. 

“[The meeting] went very well,” Sahil Inaganti, sustainability and divestment committee co-chair, said. “We had a lot of great turnout and a lot of different clubs represented. We walked away from that meeting with a better idea of what we want the mission statement of this group to be.”

Students Fallon Emmer and Mylie Bluhm presented a class project called “Humanity’s Place in Nature,” where they proposed installing a rain collection water barrel for the Tulane Gardening club in the garden behind Monroe Hall. The resolution passed with unanimous support.

“We’re going to try and install a rain collection water barrel for Tulane Gardening club and specifically the garden behind Monroe,” Bluhm said. Bluhm and Emmer plan to work with the nonprofit Green Light New Orleans. 

“The benefits of having rain barrels out there would be amazing for Tulane’s mission for sustainability and also just for Tulane’s footprint,” Emmer said.