On Friday, Feb. 17, the Associated Students Inc. held their weekly meeting, going over events and changes within the school.

Besides the usual congratulations for participating in school events like homecoming, there were a few active discussions in this meeting.

Vernon Harper, the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, brought up potential policies that can have a wide-reaching effect on most students. The first information brought forward were talks of a zero-cost degree.

“We want to be the first CSU to have a zero-cost degree,” said Harper.

A zero-cost degree is supposed to be as it sounds like, zero-cost. More specifically, it should have zero costs outside of instructional costs.

As said later on, the point of a zero-cost degree is trying to offer the highest possible education at the lowest possible cost.

There were also concerns regarding the current structure of classes at CSUB.

While there was no specified date or place to give feedback, Harper let the attendants know he would be meeting with department chairs to give feedback and discuss the current state classes are in, which are mixed between synchronous and asynchronous.

Feedback for and against the idea of both types of classes were given for several minutes, but nothing definitive was stated at this meeting.

Potential changes to class structure could be coming in the unforeseeable future. One possibility was offered by Denver Fowler, director of Academic Advising and associate dean of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies.

“Someday, at every university … every class session is high flex, meaning you can join face-to-face, you can join remotely, synchronous, or you can join later when it’s convenient for you,” said Fowler.

There was more information from the Student Affairs Report, as Student Housing was hosting an in-person mixer on March 1 at 6 p.m. This is to promote that more on-campus living options are going to be available for students.

Things are still going well for the Student Recreation Center, continuing the increasing trend the past several weeks of students coming in and events gaining traction.

Chad Morris, director of financial aid and scholarships, brought up problems that have occurred with the Middle-Class Scholarship. Disbursements of funds have been slow due to Financial Aid only being able to start dispersing funds in mid-December. This is due to the system not being automated and the number of staff, so disbursements are taking longer to be given out.

Lastly with Director Reports, Sarah Alami has been working with departments both on and off campus to host an “API Professional Pop-up Career Closet where students can come by and select professional career outfits for free.”