Tuesday’s eventful SGA meeting started with a bang as Vice President of Internal Affairs Joey Arthur’s gavel broke as he called the meeting to order, sending the head of the gavel nearly into the crowd. Things smoothed over quickly though, as Arthur introduced professor Jonathon Quam as the meeting’s guest speaker.
Quam pitched a unique request to the assembled senators, asking for a one-time funding of $800 to host Twitch streamers Lawrie Bird and Elloriana for the campus group In! The group could not fund the event due to restrictions from Texas Senate Bill 17, but Quam offered to exchange the one-time SGA funding for a $1600 contribution to SGA funds from In! The student senate approved the measure.
Senators then raised concerns about reliability issues with the bus and shuttle systems on campus, prompting some to encourage emailing administrators. President Zetta Cannedy followed that by announcing the theme for this year’s SGA banquet, titled SGA: The Eras Tour.
Cannedy then led a discussion about the inconsistencies of methods for booking rooms on campus. The group reached a consensus that Ad Astra, a software available through Mustangs Link would be preferable as an across-the-board booking system.
The group then discussed the possibility of mandating either a four- or five-day academic week. Currently, Dillard is the only college that utilizes a four-day academic week.
Cannedy also mentioned that a survey will go out to students soon, asking for input on the possibility of a fall semester break. The added time off would mean the fall semester would either have to start earlier or end later.
“There’s a couple of questions that we want answered in that. So first off, do faculty, staff and students, it’s going to go to the whole MSU community, want a fall break? Do they see it as benefitting student mental health, campus morale, those types of things. Then our second question is, when should this fall break be?,” Cannedy said.
The senate meeting took a jovial turn then, as senators had the chance to nominate candidates for faculty, advisor, senator and staff of the year awards. Senators quickly put forward their favorite candidates, trying to garner support from their colleagues.
“These awards are the only student-nominated awards on campus,” Cannedy said, adding, “It often means a lot, when we hear the faculty members who won those, or the staff members who won those, it means a lot more because it shows that they are impacting those students directly and the students understand that.”
The meeting closed with organizations providing reminders of upcoming events and approval of a $250 SLF request for American Chemical Society members to attend a convention in New Orleans.
