ASA denies Trebuchet Club
The Augustana Student Association rejected the Augustana Trebuchet Club’s second request for ASA approval on Feb. 4.
With 11 votes in favor of the club, nine votes against and three abstentions, the Augustana Trebuchet Club did not receive a majority plus one of the 23 total votes required for ASA approval.
Seniors Tom King, MaryRuth Hurdle and Michael Schmidt came up with the idea for the Trebuchet Club while they sat around a table in the philosophy department hallway.
“All of us were avoiding our homework, as one does,” Hurdle said. “We had the idea, ‘We’re all friends, and we all run a bunch of clubs. Wouldn’t it be fun if we proposed our own club?’”
Using their knowledge as an ASA senator, King drafted a constitution. Hurdle edited it, and religion professor Ann Pederson accepted an advisory role.
While the goal of the Trebuchet Club is ostensibly to build and fire trebuchets, King and Hurdle said the true purpose of the club is to build community.
“Trebuchets are almost an excuse to have community,” King said. “The giant siege weapon is incidental.”
Other purported goals of the Trebuchet Club are to raise awareness of the inter-religious heritage of trebuchets and to stretch the limits of what clubs can be on Augustana’s campus.
The trebuchet club’s unconventional constitution is one way it is challenging what Augustana clubs can be.
Elections are held by drawing lots and elected positions are all named after types of trebuchets. King is the club’s fire whirlwind, and Hurdle holds the title of crouching tiger. Impeachments involve rolling dice, and the club’s traction, or secretary, is required to store all meeting minutes in a physical chest.
King said ASA recognition provides clubs with a number of benefits.
“They do training for presidents and secretaries. They provide community and also legitimacy,” King said. “Service hours only count towards funding if you are part of an registered student organizations, and we want to do a lot of trebuchet related service. We will do [service] regardless, but it wouldn’t hurt.”
Freshman Sen. Domanic Dick said he questioned why the club sought ASA recognition if it didn’t need funding.
“The ‘prestige’ argument that the clubs are using is failing because every club is becoming ASA-recognized and ‘prestigious,’” Dick said.
ASA first denied Augustana Trebuchet Club recognition on Dec. 2 because the club’s Viking Central did not display both of their student leaders. King and Hurdle were listed as student leaders on paperwork submitted to Student Engagement and became an Augustana recognized student organization, but that information did not correctly transfer online.
The Trebuchet Club amended this issue and was reconsidered for recognition by ASA at the senate’s next meeting. However, the club was denied recognition despite meeting all requirements for ASA approval, which include having a constitution, ten or more members, two or more student leaders and a faculty adviser.
“During my time and research of past ASA records, I haven’t really found anything that seems like there is some sort of precedent of ASA senators just seeing that all of the requirements are there for an ASA club to be recognized and then that ultimately resulting in the club not being recognized by ASA,” ASA President Lauren Teller said. “If I had the power to vote, I would have voted to approve. I was a little bit surprised, honestly, that it didn’t go through.”
ASA Technical Director Prince Adhikari said at an ASA press briefing on Feb. 8 that the Augustana Trebuchet Club was rejected largely due to new senators voting based on a club’s merits. Adhikari said previous senates typically approved clubs that met all requirements.
“This year’s senate is divided,” Adhikari said.
In the past, Teller said clubs that met the ASA requirements were almost unanimously approved for recognition.
“There haven’t been many clubs in my mind that haven’t been like a sweep [of approval],” Teller said.
Six of the nine senators who voted no and both who chose to abstain were first elected to ASA for the 2023-2024 academic year. Only one senator who voted no has served on ASA for more than two years. King was required to abstain as a founder of Augustana Trebuchet Club.
Adhikari said the six senators he spoke with who voted no believed the club was not worthy of ASA funding.
“It seems like a fun and silly thing to do among friends or to be facilitated through other clubs like SMACS or the Anthropology Club, but I don’t feel like this is something that would benefit the general student body, and so I can’t justify giving $400 a year of student tuition funds just to build a siege engine,” senior Sen. Caleigh Sanchez said.
Adhikari said other concerns that senators raised included safety and liability issues, worries that the club did not have the backing of an academic department and that there would not be enough participation and the club would quickly die out.
“My major concern with the club is the concept itself,” sophomore Sen. Abbey Allen said. “I was concerned about the precedent it would set if we had approved a club that was to build weapons on campus.”
Adhikari said the Augustana Trebuchet Club should consult with Campus Safety and the dean of students to allay safety concerns and strengthen its appeal for approval.
“I believe approval from the physics department and campus security would greatly affect how I would consider the Trebuchet Club for ASA recognition,” Dick said.
King and the Augustana Trebuchet Club are currently in communication with Campus Safety and Student Engagement and are working to sway senators. Physics professor Nathan Grau has been brought on as a second faculty adviser, and the club plans to reapply for ASA recognition in early March.
“While I think that the senators who voted no had the responsibility to voice their concerns before the vote, their requests are reasonable and working with all these groups across campus has been a blast,” King said.
