Yesterday, Saint Louis University’s Student Government Association continued its streak of meetings with quick and unanimous approvals. The one hour meeting resulted in two senators being seated, the chartering of two new student organizations and three funding bills being passed that totaled more than $10,000.

The first bill before the Senate had grad students Alex Limjunco and Henry Elster appointed commuter senator and medical school senator, respectively.

Then the Campus Emergency Response Team came before the assembled students to seek chartering, which entitles the group to make budget requests through SGA. CERT is a local incarnation of a recent national trend in universities developing their own team of first responders. In the past few months the program has educated SLU students, faculty and staff on disaster response. The group prepares for the unfortunate possibility of disasters like fires, earthquakes and terrorism.

Following a brief discussion of the group’s mission, CERT’s charter was unanimously approved.

The second group to seek chartering was the Saint Louis Athletic Training Society. Before a restructuring of athletic training at SLU the group had previously been chartered. Recently the group has lent their expertise at several sporting and charitable events. Recognizing the groups contributions senators quickly approved SLATS chartered status.

The next part of the government session was dedicated to three groups seeking spot funding. Two of the groups were club sports seeking funding to travel to national tournaments. Club Tennis was given the $3,600 they requested for travel, hotel stay and entry fee for their national tournament in Phoenix. The SLU rugby team was given $6,600 to attend their western championship in Colorado. The Senate held little discussion over the bills, they moved from congratulating the teams to approving the requested funds.

The brief discussion on the issues prompted Executive Vice President Alex Joyce to say that “I want to hear more discussion, more debate.”

Financial Vice President Jonathan Perdue echoed Joyce.

“You owe it to these organizations to ask good questions about the money they’re spending,” he said.

Astha A Cappella, a coed singing group, made a request for $200, part of the total cost for an end-of-the-year concert they are hosting. The Senate approved the measure after brief debate.