Last week, on Oct. 17, the Senate held its third meeting of the semester. Out of all the status reports from the committees, here are the most important:
• The Judicial Committee passed an amendment to the Senate’s constitution. The amendment states that a club can only miss at most either one President’s Council Meeting or one Club and Organization Status Report (COSR) per semester for that club to remain in good standing with the Senate.
“We have already been practicing it like this, and this is already what the SGU [executive]board holds as [a]standard [for determining good standing]. So, we thought it was important for the constitution to reflect that,” said committee chair Rose Foley.
The amendment still needs to be ratified by the Student Government Union before it becomes official. Ratification is a lengthy process where the SGU President, Vice President of Operations, an advisor to the SGU, the Senate Pro-Tempore and a President of a club or organization must meet to vote on whether the amendment should be ratified. The Judicial Committee plans to officially start amending the constitution in their committee meeting Nov. 6. However, this amendment was an exception because it needed to be passed and ratified quickly.
• The Marketing and Research Committee deleted all the social media pages for the Senate. Committee chair Romario Williams said that all future posts would be made on the SGU webpage. Additionally, the committee plans to have a tabling event where students can talk to individual committees instead of the Senate as a whole so that students can ask more specific questions.
• The Philanthropy Committee is searching for potential volunteer options for all majors. They are speaking with some of the department heads to see what volunteer opportunities would be available. They also plan to work with the Social Work department for their food drive and hygiene drive.
• All class committees are planning to spend their entire budgets on events for their respective classes. The exception is the Sophomore Committee, which plans to host a scholarship for $2,000 in addition to doing its events.
• The Environmental Committee proposed getting in touch with Residence Life to discuss implementing a recycling program. It also proposed to have a recycling drive the week before Thanksgiving, along with an event to show people what can and can’t be recycled. Committee member Selena Giordano said that there are a lot of clubs trying to get recycling back on campus, but that there are a lot of factors that would make it difficult to achieve this goal right away. The committee also plans to bring hammocks to campus.
• The Activities Committee is doing the finishing touches on planning Spirit Week.
The president of the University, Dr. Senese, will be attending the next Senate meeting. If you wish to attend and observe the next Senate meeting or any meeting in the future, contact Celine-Deon Palmer at celine-deon.palmer@email.saintleo.edu so that she can make sure there is space to accommodate you.
