The Undergraduate Student Government approved the Young Americans for Liberty Club at its meeting Sunday evening.  

Young Americans for Liberty’s website said the organization is “the continuation of Students for Ron Paul.” Despite YAL’s background, sophomore Brandon Yapel said all students, no matter their political background, would benefit from bringing the organization to St. Thomas.

“It’s a club that’s really going to promote liberty on campus. We’re a group of students who really believe in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and free market capitalism,” Yapel said. “We really want to set up a forum on campus, have meetings to discuss issues, bring in speakers (and) start debates and discussion.”

Going along with the council’s neighborhood relations initiative, the council also proposed sending neighbors a neighborhood relations newsletter.

“(It’s) something we could maybe do on a semester basis, maybe on a monthly basis, just to send out to neighbors (to) just be like, ‘Hey here’s all the great things USG and the student body’s doing,” West Summit Neighborhood Advisory Committee USG representative David Hackworthy said.

The council also discussed starting a library textbook reserve initiative. Vice President Mike Orth said he has been working with library staff to possibly start another initiative to provide a textbook check out for classes of 100 students or more.

“It gives students who are in those classes an option to rent those textbooks out from the library without having to pay for them. With textbooks being so expensive, it just gives them another option,” Orth said.

Orth also discussed plans for the Club Leadership Dinner on Nov 28. Club presidents are invited to dinner with the council in order to maintain relations and voice concerns.

“It’s a good way for them to get to know USG and for USG to get to know them because we work with them when we approve their clubs,” Orth said. “We work with them for budget requests.”

Cynthia Johnson can be reached at john3175@stthomas.edu.