SGA SENATE MEETING
October 26, 2009
OFFICERS PRESENT: Glenn Gardner, Kimberly Proctor, Michael Baldwin, Gregory Bettis, Colin Al-Greene, Ashley Pittman
OFFICERS ABSENT: N/A
OFFICERS ON LEAVE: N/A
SENATORS PRESENT: Ashley Guy, Eric Beovich, Paige Perry, Daniel Reid, Sean Ramsey, Brandon Richardson, Will Thomas, Adam Langan, Greg Youngblood, Hannah Sanders, Cameron Macon, Basia Smith, Julie Tanner, Sidney King, Alan Sells, Jacob Mahan, Todd Fowler, Benjamin Kuyk, Lauren Gessner, Alexandria Hillard, Carly Hall, John Miner, Justin Schneider, Jeremy Johnson, Krystle Riner, Blair Segers, Brittany Sterling, Casey Calhoun
SENATORS ABSENT: Pavin Kappadia, Priscilla McCants, Christopher Jones, Emily Carlson
SENATORS ON LEAVE: N/A
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Motion: Approve the Minutes of 10/12/09
Sponsor: Guy
OFFICER’S REPORTS:
President:
Vice President: Proctor asked senators to sign up to help during
the week’s Homecoming events. She also thanked everyone for going to the
Treasurer:
Attorney General: Bettis reminded everyone to turn in their Who’s Who applications.
Chief Justice: N/A
Student-At-Large: Pittman asked senators to come to the football
game against
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Guy reminded senators that office hours are due soon, and that only five inside office hours are allowed per week. Guy also needs one person to be a representative from each college and attend the stipend meeting on December 1st.
SPECIAL ORDERS:
Dean Mitchell reminded senators and officers to turn in Who’s Who Applications, which are due in one week. Dean Mitchell encouraged student organizations to tailgate for both the Homecoming game and the Halloween game this weekend. Lastly, he wants senators to think about how they can better the Student Government Association next year. Anyone interested in an officer position should talk to one of the officers about their duties.
OLD BUSINESS: N/A
NEW BUSINESS:
Dr.
Smith gave a presentation to the SGA about the new Dining Hall. He explained to
the Senate that the only way to pay for the new cafeteria building is to impose
a mandatory meal plan for all students who live on campus. He is working on
making the meal plans more accessible to students. Some meals will carry over
if they are not used, and also, students will have more choices as to where to
spend their bonus bucks. The current dining facility, the Market, will be
turned into a sort of student mall, hopefully with a new fast food chain
restaurant. Dr. Smith hopes the new Dining Hall will have a huge impact on
student life at
STUDENT: How would this work with students who live in the Betas or Gammas, because they already have a stove and they can cook their own meals so the purpose of a mandatory meal plan seems kind of pointless. I wouldn’t go to the Delta Deli or the cafeteria if I could make my own food.
DR. SMITH: Well that is something we could maybe take into consideration but for now it will be mandatory for everyone on campus. And even if you say you wouldn’t go to the Delta Deli, you know, it sells groceries that you can buy with your meal plan.
STUDENT: What about the Grove?
DR. SMITH: As of now, the Grove is not a part of the University. The land is being leased to them so it is a different
YOUNGBLOOD: Will there be wireless internet in this new facility?
DR. SMITH: Yes.
SELLS: So if a student did not use all of his or her meals in a week, they would all carry over to the next week?
DR. SMITH: We want students to use all their meals, so probably two would carry over. So if you had fifteen meals a week but didn’t use them all, the next week you would have seventeen.
SELLS: Well I know a lot of Education majors spend a lot of time at the College of Education building and also with a lot of the upper education classes, there are students who may live on campus but can’t always drive back to campus to use their meal plans.
DR.SMITH: What do you want, do you want all of the meals to roll over?
SELLS: That’s not what I’m saying, I was just trying to point out…
DR.SMITH: Well that is something that could be a concern. I don’t know if they would only eat there once a day, maybe that’s a meal plan we could make.
GUY: Can ya’ll tell us how much it is costing to build this new building?
DR.SMITH: Well the new building is very expensive and with all the furnishings and things we have to put inside the building, it’s not quite set but it will be approximately 8 million dollars.
GUY: Okay, and I know it’s a concern for students going home on the weekends, but for those who don’t, what are going to be the hours of operation on the weekends? That was my concerns, because some students can’t go off campus, don’t have cars so they need it to be open.
DR.SMITH: Well that’s up to you. I mean, we could keep it open as long as it needs to be. I know our schedule is different from yours and if you need it open at midnight, we can keep it open. But now, if students aren’t going to be using the facility that late at night, there’s no reason to keep it open.
GESSNER: Now the part that’s going to be the Quizno’s and Chik-fil-a center or whatever, how would the meal plan work for that?
DR.SMITH: That would be a cash operation or part of your bonus bucks. But now we could maybe work out something where you can order a certain meal and that would count as one of your meals too. It all just depends on what the students want.
STUDENT: Um, I just read an article in the Vanguard about the meal plans and people living in the dorms, having kitchens, they’re going to get groceries. Now me and another person share a grocery bill and we only pay about $50 a week for food. If that’s 15 weeks in a semester for $50, that’s only $750 that we spend. That would never equal $1,000 even if we went out to eat for $15 every now and then. So this meal plan doesn’t benefit us in anyway, but it does sound like a great facility to use if it could be discounted. Take out the bonus bucks, take out the meal plan, make it only $600 bonus bucks. I think that if you’re forcing students into having these meal plans, you’re hurting the students who work minimum wage and are paying their way and now have to pay for this meal plan.
DR.SMITH: Is this how you all feel?
VICE PRESIDENT PROCTOR: Show of hands, if you agree with that, if you think…
DR.SMITH: I mean do you just want the bonus bucks to go away?
STUDENT: Well maybe we could just have a build-your-own meal plan? Like we could all have one that benefits us. Or just have, you know, a couple more options to the meal plan that we have to have.
HALL: Um, I came from Auburn University before I came here, and they just go their brand new facility, and I can see the progress that they had there. And they had a mandatory meal plan, but only for Freshman, and you could go there, and you only pay for what you want. I don’t know about bonus bucks here but it wasn’t all-you-can-eat. You could use it all at once or at the end of the year because it transferred over from fall to spring.
DR.SMITH: Now we did some research and at Auburn the mandatory meal plan was actually for all students living on campus.
HALL: No, it was only for students living on campus who were Freshman.
HILLARD: So are you telling us that if we do not have a mandatory meal plan we cannot pay for the new building? Because we did not have the funds, why are we building this new facility?
DR.SMITH: We knew we weren’t going to be able to pay for it, and the solution to that was having these mandatory meal plans.
STUDENT: If there was a minimum, like the minimum threshold that you could impose on students while still being able to operate and build this facility, what would that threshold be?
DR.SMITH: Well I don’t know exactly, we had just planned out the meal plan with the meals that carry over.
STUDENT: So you can’t tell us that the most we would pay for a meal plan would be $700 or $1,000 and less?
DR.SMITH: We don’t know that yet.
STUDENT: When will this facility be opened?
DR.SMITH: We are expecting it to be ready for operation next fall.
STUDENT: We are in an economic crisis. Why do we have to have these meal plans that nobody wants and nobody can afford? Why can’t we just update the building we have now?
DR.SMITH: I mean, we are updating the old building but we are still going to need to build a new facility.
STUDENT: Well one of the reasons why I chose USA instead of some other school is because I’m from Mississippi and every college there required you to have a meal plan and South didn’t. And also, I feel that I eat healthier when I buy my own food.
VICE PRESIDENT PROCTOR: We need to work with Dr. Smith and present the faculty and Dr. Smith a resolution that comes out of this senate about what we would like to see the meal plans structured as. Because, until we give something in writing, they just have all the ideas floating around. So if you want to meet up, work out something, that’s fine but they need to know what we want.
DR.SMITH: I’d love for you to email me and give me your ideas if that’s what you wanted to do. My email is johnsmith@usouthal.edu. It’s all one word.
Chief Justice Al-Greene gave a presentation to the senate on the cost of a meal plan in relation to the cost of housing, and how these mandatory meal plans could affect the housing market on campus.
Anyone who has suggestions for a more effective meal plan should contact Senator Smith. There will also be a meeting at the Beta/Gamma commons on November 18th at 5:00 PM to discuss the matter further.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Proctor announced that his week the SGA will have dinner at Sabor A at 6:00 PM on Thursday.
Perry reminded senators to get excited about Homecoming and participate in as many activates as possible.
*Meeting adjourned (VP Proctor)