BY CORIE LYNN
With only two days until Halloween, the FHSU Student Government Association conducted their weekly meeting dressed for the holiday. Costumed as t-rexes, space cowboys and supreme court justices, the student senators spent their evening listening to a guest speaker and hearing weekly reports.
The evening’s speaker was Amy Schaffer, the FHSU Title IX Compliance Officer. She spoke to the student senators about her role on campus as well as answer any questions they might have.
“I am here as a confidential resource for you,” Schaffer said, explaining she is the campus officer to whom sexual or discriminatory misconduct is reported.
According to Schaffer, her role also includes acting as lead investigator in campus violation cases, acting as a mandatory reporter and making accommodations for students.
“It’s really about ‘What do you need?’” she said.
Following the discussion with Schaffer, the Executive Staff gave a number of short reports from their week.
President Haley Reiter and Vice President Bryson Homman both attended the Student Emergency Assistance Fund meetings for the week, helping to award funding to multiple students.
They explained they both spent their week in meetings, including one with the Wichita State University SGA to help them understand how to start free legal counseling for students on their own campus.
Treasurer David Schulte reported he answered questions about allocations, reminding students and organizations that money allocated for those canceled spring events is still available to be used.
As this meeting was the last one before Tuesday’s elections, Legislative Affairs Director Crystal Rojas once again reminded the students to follow through with their voting plans and to participate in the coming election.
In addition, she announced Free Legal Counseling will be offered Nov. 17.
Though none of the SGA’s standing committees gave reports during the evening, a number of student senators serving on the university’s committees gave weekly updates.
The General Education and Faculty Academic Affairs committees reviewed courses during the week. The former looked at objectives for courses such as History 379 while the latter looked at assessed courses for the new general education program.
In addition to these committees, the Partners in Technology Committee met to discuss their responsibilities on campus and the Open Educational Resource Committee discussed promoting free and reduced-cost resources.
Following the committee reports, the student senate installed one new member then moved into Open Forum.
The only discussion for Open Forum came from Senator Will Barfield who asked if for an update on the Fall course schedule as he had heard rumors about not returning to campus following Fall Break.
Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, Dr. Teresa Clounch confirmed that this rumor is false.
“We are ending the semester as planned,” she said.
With no old business to vote on nor announcements, the evening concluded with two bills up for first reading.
The Student Government Association will reconvene at 6:30 p.m. on Thur, Nov. 5.