The stands looked a little empty again this week.
In just a little more than an hour, the Student Government Association ended its second meeting of the year on Wednesday with a barely-filled chamber, as 32 senate seats are still available.
Anvender expects the dynamics of the chamber to build as applicants are interviewed and selected for the available senator positions.
Interviews for the open senate seats will take place this weekend.
However, although senate attendance was slim, some business was successfully accomplished.
Five bills were passed in Wednesday night’s meeting. Two of the bills entailed the creation of two new SGA Committees.
The Committee for Safety and Security and the Committee of Student Relations are now active sub-bodies of SGA.
The Safety and Security Committee will address student concerns regarding campus safety.
Now that the committee has been officially instituted, the accompanying senators will be able to meet with newly appointed Assistant Vice President and Director of Public Safety and Security Services Roland Corvington in order to start dealing with the issues brought up students.
The other committee came to fruition is the Student Relations Committee. A mission of SGA this year to provide more of a connection between the general student public and the senate, the Student Relations committee aims to improve this connection.
In order to facilitate a better connection between students and the senate, the committee will “oversee the maintenance of the all SGA websites, social networking sites” and “spearhead SGA relations with student media groups” stated in the committee’s description.
As part of the committee, SGA will be launching a new website in the coming weeks. The committee will also focus more on utilization of SGA’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
SGA also passed a bill this week that will incorporate Committee Representatives in the senate population.
“It’s designed to increase intellectual diversity in SGA and will be a good thing for people who can’t come Wednesday evenings but still want to be involved,” College of Arts and Sciences Senator Jimmy Meiners said.
The Committee Representatives will serve on various SGA committees and will have voting power within the committees but not in senate sessions.
Though the representatives will not have the same responsibilities as senators, they are intended to increase the “organizational transparency” of SGA, and allow for continued interest in SGA.
Vice President of Internal Affairs Murphy Vandenberg expressed that they are attempting to rekindle an excitement about SGA. She said that it is not uncommon for students to lose interest in SGA after not being accepted for a senatorial position.
“I’m excited that we passed this,” Murphy said.
“There’s a lot of interest in SGA this year and even if they are not senators [students] deserve a voice in SGA,” Vandenberg continued.
The addition of the representatives was able to be passed at this week’s meeting because it was previously presented during last year’s senate.
Most bills must be tabled for a week before voting can occur.
