Editor's Note: A previous version of this story stated that the Women's Rugby team competed in the elite eight round of the 2018 National Championships. It has been corrected to say 2016.
The Associated Students at the University of New Mexico voted to appropriate just over $14,000 to Women’s Rugby on Wednesday night on its first full-senate meeting of the semester.
With 19 votes for and 1 absentee-abstention, ASUNM voted to continue funding the team for the duration of the fall semester.
Women’s rugby is currently a club sport and does not fall under the athletics department. The women’s rugby team competed in the elite eight round of the National Championship in 2016.
President of the rugby team, Gabriella Rivera, said the team had been trying to gain recognition under the athletics department since 2017, but going through ASUNM was “honestly, more sustainable.” Much of the funding is set to cover travel and room cost.
The Senate also voted to commend eight student-athletes for their accomplishments on and off the field. The commendations included Katherine Irwin, a member of the women’s ski team, for earning First Team Google Cloud Academic All-America in the 2017-2018 season.
Irwin is a biochemistry and molecular biology major. She had earned a 4.10 GPA, according to College Sports Information Directors of America.
Five appointments were also voted on including the student court chief justice, director of communications, deputy director of communications, chief of staff and deputy chief of staff — all of which succeeded.
Senator’s Jorge Rios and Sara Al-Midany introduced the eight commendations.
Rios said that while “the athletics department was the athletics department” it remained the responsibility of ASUNM to celebrate the accomplishments of student-athletes.
The Senate also had a lengthy conversation regarding the proper spelling of freshmen — eventually, after around 15 minutes, they decided the spelling was freshmen, not freshman.
In addition to being the president of the Women’s Rugby Team, Gabriella Rivera is also a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo.
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Justin Garcia is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers ASUNM. He can be contacted by email at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Just516garc.