STORY BY CORIE LYNN
On Thursday, December 6, the Student Government Association held their final meeting of the semester.
Following the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting, the executive officers gave their weekly reports.
During this time, President Adam Schibi discussed the meeting of the Virtual Student Senate, which was first assembled this semester.
At this week’s meeting of the senate, according to President Schibi, seven out of the ten virtual student senators were present. The meeting itself discussed strategic planning, dead week policy, as well as problems virtual students face with the new online bookstore. The senate also recently elected its first executive officers to three different positions.
Following Schibi, Vice President Kirschbaum reported that she will re-read the SGA constitution and bylaws in order to make clarifications to questions regarding the documents that arise during meetings.
Treasurer Voss also gave a report; his was concerning allocations for student organizations. The deadline for allocation applications closed December 3 and he will begin the process of reviewing the thirty-three applications that were submitted.
During the reports, there was also an announcement about an event called Cocoa and Cram at Breathe Coffee House on Sunday evening. Cocoa and Cram will start at nine on Sunday evening, and will include refreshments, music, and a raffle.
Few committees gave reports during the meeting, however, the senators representing the different colleges each mentioned that they would meet with deans and departments soon to discuss improvements that can be made within the colleges.
This is true for the senators representing Freshmen and KAMS who are hoping to make improvements to the Freshman Seminar classes.
After the committee reports, President Schibi made an announcement about the General Education Committee. This was regarding the changes being made to the university general education requirements.
According to Schibi, these changes passed a vote in the faculty senate, but with resistance from members representing the College of Science, Technology and Mathematics. This resistance is due to there being no place for a required lab hour in the updated general education requirements.
Following this announcement, Emily Cranwell and Jessica Maciel were sworn in as new senators.
Near the end of the meeting, one bill was passed and another was voted to be postponed until after Winter Break. A third bill was then discussed by the senators.
This bill, 18/F/103, is a proposed waiver for the Special Events Committee, which is the host of the FHSU Encore series.
Waivers are submitted by to the SGA by non-student organizations that would like to be considered for allocations from the SGA. While the group may vote in favor of the waivers of various organizations, this does not guarantee that SGA will vote in favor of actually providing funding to those organizations.
Senator Michael Musgrove of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences led the discussion surrounding the bill. While he spoke, he said that he would vote against the waiver.
Musgrove stated that, while he understood that the waiver is only for consideration of funding, he is against it because he believes that the funding should stay in the hands of the students; the Special Events Committee, on the other hand, is largely funded by Hays businesses and FHSU students make up a minority of attendees of the Encore series.
Further discussion amongst the senators led to the consideration of where this issue fell in the SGA Funding Guide. This included a reminder that the Funding Guide does assist with regulation on how the Senate should consider funding, but the guide itself is not an SGA governing document.
In a vote following the discussion, Bill 18/F/103 failed.
After final announcements, which included this meeting being the last for Senator Nicholas Glassman, the meeting concluded.
The SGA will reconvene following Winter Break.