August 29, 2011
Roll
Call
Senators Absent: Michael Breckenridge, Chris
Hames, Zack Milwee, Nathan Wisner, Jacqueline Gayton
Approval
of the Minutes
-
Minutes from last
meeting approved by acclimation.
Officer
Reports
President Greene – I’m going to send out the Homecoming election packets on
September 12th and they’ll be due back on the 19th at
5:00 pm. That same night we’ll have a campus meeting and on the 26th/28th
we’ll have the first round of elections. October 6th and 7th
will be run-off elections and the following week will be Homecoming, with the
parade on Friday and crowning Homecoming queen Saturday at the game. And I’ll
send out a campus wide email about that as well. I also have a project I’d like
to work on a project involving faculty and students with children and make it
into a self-sustaining business. We will have a meeting about that soon.
Vice President Byrd – I know a lot of you are getting ready to do your college
days next month and I just want to encourage you to talk to your deans and ask
them what SGA can do to help their college and the needs that should be filled.
Use that information to do a survey if you want to do a survey to see what your
substituents need. The people that did not have nametags last week are: Meagan
Jackson, Sarah Kirby, and Emily Scarborough. Email your info to our Webmaster
at nsh702 on Jaguar email. All you need to do is send her your picture,
college, your name, and your email address. Wednesday is “Get On Board Day”, we
are going to have a table at Java City from 11:00 am – 2:00 pm. We’ll send
around a sheet to see who can work.
Treasurer Lawkis – Appropriations stuff is coming up. Next week is Labor
Day so we don’t have a meeting, so September 12th will be our first
budget meeting so those of you that are on appropriations committee, we will
have our first committee meeting at 5:30 pm on Wednesday the 7th (of
September). Let’s plan on the SGA office for now and if we need more room we
might move to the conference room. Today was the last day to submit receipts
from the summer semester. I don’t know how you guys feel about granting
exceptions but the Lowdown says that six days after the semester is the final
deadline. I’ve sent emails for the Student Activities account to advisors and
from the SGA account to campus last week and half the people still have not
claimed their reimbursements. I sent a reminder today and a few people are
asking for extensions so I don’t know what you guys want me to do about that.
Senator Sells – Just to give a different perspective on what Nick said, I’ve
been doing this for three years now. Part of appropriations is that you know
that some groups won’t turn in their packets, but they have been told several
times. At what point to we stop codling the clubs? We have given them a
deadline and communicated it to them at least four times; I just want you to
know how many times this has been communicated to them before you make the
decision of giving them an extension.
Vice President Byrd – A lot of times groups have come up to Nick beforehand
and explained any issues, so we do make exceptions for that. So don’t think
we’re being unreasonable.
Treasurer Lawkis – The only one that has gotten approved was the Secular
Student Alliance because they had a speaker coming next week and they wanted to
make sure they would get reimbursed since obviously appropriations had not
happened yet. That falls in the grey area between summer and fall semesters but
it’s up to you guys. Mortar Board, for example, how many are we going to give
them? It’s up to you guys – what do you want to do?
President Al-Greene – Maybe we should put it up to a vote.
Senator Sells – Have any of the groups requesting extensions given a
reason why? That information might be helpful before we vote.
Treasurer Lawkis – How about we just let the appropriations committee deal with it next Wednesday at 5:30? Is that okay?
Also, this Friday is the due date for appropriations packets.
Senator Sells – Maybe we should just time stamp the reimbursement
packets so we know exactly when we received them. It will be up to the
appropriations committee at that point.
Attorney General Arditi – I’ve been approached by Art majors about replacing their
art tables. From what I hear the tables are ancient, and considering that Art
majors have to spend thousands of dollars on supplies for their classes I
wanted to propose that the Arts and Sciences senators to look at that for
senator projects.
Chief Justice Wolf – We have four associates that need to be confirmed
tonight. I am trying to get a meeting with the parking director to discuss safety,
parking, and other issues that have come up for not only students but faculty
as well. If you have any concerns you want me to bring up let me know so I can
put it on the agenda.
Senator Ramsey – Do you know what time during the day they are doing the
parking survey?
Chief Justice Wolf – In the past they have done the survey around noon or
1:00 pm, which is what they consider the peak time of campus. However this can
vary between from zone to zone. I’ll bring that up too in the meeting.
Pro Tem Wilson- Just a reminder that you have to have twenty office hours
by the end of the semester. There should still be a sign-in sheet in the office
to log your hours. I’ll also post on the Facebook group about upcoming meetings
to discuss senate projects.
President Al-Greene – Who has not received their stipend from summer semester?
I’ll call Payroll and see what the holdup is.
Senator Purnell – You must fill out an I-9 form to get paid.
Senator Ramsey – Additional point of information: you must fill out an
I-9 form every single semester in order to get paid. It’s a recent change after
our Payroll got hit hard by ICE and so this is one of the changes.
Committee
Reports
Fallon –
There is a football game this Thursday at 6:30 pm at Ladd Peebles. Tomorrow we
have a pep rally at 7:00 pm at the Mitchell Center Lawn. There is a soccer game
on September 2nd at 12:00 and on the 4th at 12:00. There
is also a volleyball game on September 2nd at 7:00 and there’s
another game on the 3rd at 11:00 and another at 7:00. There’s no
more parking passes left for the football game, so you can try to ride the bus
from the mall or try to park somewhere.
Senator Sells – I will post on the Facebook group about appropriations;
if you want to be on the committee click “Like” so we can get a list of names
for the committee. It’s a great opportunity to get office hours and help the
students get money for what they need.
Pelonia
– There is a Homecoming meeting this Wednesday at 5:30 at Java City and we will
be discussing everything about homecoming so please come because I’ll need a
lot of help.
Governmental
Affairs should stay after tonight’s meeting to discuss our next meeting.
Treasurer Lawkis – Wednesday at 5:15 is the third and final informational
meeting for appropriations (we had one today and one last week), so those on
appropriations committee who want to sit in and learn more about it please come
to the meeting.
Old
Business
Floor opened
for nominations for Student Affairs
Eric Beovich was nominated.
Beovich –
I did this over the summer and we started working on the First Year Council. As
far as student affairs I have a really good relationship with Dean Mitchell and
Robin Jones and Dr. Smith and others in the Student Affairs office.
President
Al-Greene – How is the resolution coming
for the First Year Council?
Davis –
We still need to have a meeting about that to bring everything together.
Fallon –
Can we establish a meeting time so we can get going on that? Because we also
need to elect a Freshman at Large, which would hopefully come from that group.
Senator Sells – If you are happy for whoever is running for a committee,
you do not have to open the floor for nominations.
Byrd –
That’s fine, moving on to Governmental Affairs.
Floor
opened for nominations for Governmental Affairs.
Katie
Reeves nominated.
Reeves –
I did this over the summer and I would like an opportunity to get involved with
it.
Purnell (nominated previous week) – Higher Ed Day is one of the events that Governmental
Affairs covers and I’m not new to Higher Ed Day, I’ve done it a couple of years
in the past. This last summer I attended the Stars retreat, which was a
three-day conference about Higher Ed Day. I believe I have a lot of knowledge I
can contribute to this committee.
Last week’s nominations:
Appropriations Committee – Alan Sells
Legal Affairs – Riley Davis
Rules Committee – Parker Chastain
Special
Orders
Floor
opened for discussion of Associate Justices.
Justin Ladner – I’m a sophomore Mechanical Engineering major.
Rebecca Varnadore – I’m a sophomore Nursing major.
Ashley Trinh – I’m a Marketing and Economics
major and I am a junior.
Chastity Simmons – I’m a Biology major and I am a
senior.
Senator Sells – Please briefly tell the senate why you would do an
appropriate job.
Ladner –
I’m really excited to get involved on campus, and I fell like this is a really
good way to join SGA. Talking to Coleman about the position I feel that I
really know enough about it that I could do the job of Associate Justice.
Varnadore –
I’m very involved in Kappa Delta and university committee chairs. I’ve been
trying to get into SGA, and when Coleman called me and said he trusted me
enough to nominate me I got really excited about it.
Trinh –
I like to think that I’m a very rational person and very level-headed and like
to think that others also see me as that. I like to think I’m also very
educated and I’m also in the Honors Program. I like to think that I see things
from both sides and as Associate Justice I’d serve very well. I was SGA President
in high school and always very involved in our state senate and worked for a
Mississippi senator. I’ve always wanted to work for SGA and be a part of SGA
and the right opportunity presented itself at the right time so I took it.
Simmons
– I want to be involved on campus and I felt like this would be perfect for me because
I am open-minded but still I know the rules and like to follow the rules.
Chief Justice Wolf- These four people filled out applications and everything
and if I did not believe they were capable and qualified for this position then
I would not have brought them here tonight. I do trust them with what the
duties that they have to do and Chastity and Ashley have already attended a
hearing because they were not able to be confirmed this summer, so they do know
what to do.
Justin
Ladner was confirmed as Associate Justice with no abstentions.
Rebecca
Varnadore was confirmed as Associate Justice; Kacie Watson, Michael
Breckenridge, Zac Kennedy, Brittany Ward, Sarah Malone, and Stephanie Pelonia
abstained from voting.
Ashley
Trinh was confirmed as Associate Justice; Kacie
Watson, Parker Chastain, Jacob Weatherly, and Logan Mitchell abstained from
voting.
Chastity
Simmons was confirmed as Associate Justice with no abstentions.
Ladner, Varnadore, Trinh, and Simmons were sworn into office as
Associate Justices.
Our new
Governmental Affairs Chair is Stephen Purnell.
Senator Fishel- We’ve started planning
Gumbo/Chili and would love the support of SGA like we’ve had in the past. We
want two senators to come to our meetings and serve as representatives for SGA
and any questions that SGA has for Gumbo/Chili you could come and ask at those
meetings for open communication. See me after the meeting if you are
interested.
Senator Ramsey – When you will you have information regarding that?
Senator Fishel – This semester is mainly about cutting costs and
efficiency, which is why we want SGA representatives to be at the meetings.
Announcements
Fallon –
If you wear your nametag to Cold Snap tonight you can get ten percent off your
purchase, so everyone should go. Also, we need to set up a meeting to talk
about the Freshman Legislation. Anyone who is interested please meet after the
meeting is over.
Senator Sells – The Vanguard was published today and there was a staff
editorial about SGA. I encourage everyone to read it, because this is what our
constituents read. Please read and think about what it says so we can try to
improve.
President Al-Greene – Tomorrow afternoon the Calendar Committee is meeting at
1:30 in the Administration Building. Who would be available to go to that?
Senator Reeves – Be sure to support the JagBikes
program because it makes SGA look bad when we are negative about it too.
Ward –
Could we encourage the students to put the bikes into the bike racks? When did
the Grove entrance start closing so early?
Chief Justice Wolf- That’s for safety. I know it’s inconvenient and has not
been announced. That’s also an issue I will bring up in the meeting.
Ramsey –
Have we sent out mass emails about the SGA meetings? Since we have always been
in the Student Center before and now we aren’t.
Vice President Byrd – Yes it has been announced in the Student Activities
emails.
Treasurer Lawkis – Pep Rally tomorrow at 7:00 on the Mitchell Center Lawn.
We will be doing a whipped cream and gummy bear eating contest and we already
have several organizations participating.
Adjourn