This Week In Student Government - Sept. 12

(Source: via Flickr)

Here is a recap of The Student Government Association at UT-Tyler's Sept. 12 meeting.

In this week's meeting, student government heard from The Financial Aid Office about coming changes to FAFSA. It also adopted its operating budget and a new version of its appropriations committee rules. It held an internal election for its secretary position and announced other changes in its executive board positions. See the full recap below. 

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Speaker’s Podium: Director of Financial Aid, Nathan Flory. 

Flory: The FAFSA, a major financial aid mechanism is undergoing a change starting 2024-25.
Reason for changes is to simply FAFSA process. FAFSA application will go from 180 questions to roughly 40. The focus is on an online streamlined process. 

Changes coming are:

  • October 1 deadline postponed until sometime in December.
  • FASFA Applicants now have to connect to IRS Direct Data exchange instead of manually inputting tax return data. Flory said this change allows for simplification.
  • “Contributors” is a new term. Contributors includes step-parent, parent, spouse or student. These must provide financial aid information on FASFA application now, too.
  • The term “EFC” – Expected Family Contribution is going away. New term SAI – Student Aid Index will replace EFC and will now determine need.
  • How Pell Grant will be awarded will also change, according to Flory.

Lot of changes, he said. Financial Aid office will push information to students in coming months. 

What isn’t changing is the types of aid available.  Financial Aid and Scholarship and One-Stop Shop can take questions. Flory said SGA can help get the word out to students about coming changes. 

Officer Reports – 

President Dix – When to USAC (UT System Student Advisory Council) in Austin. Dix said she found it interesting to learn that every UT System institution is having problems with housing and parking. She encouraged members to find issues that are “more specific than housing and parking.” 

“Please try to dive a little deeper into your constituents and look at issues that your college is directly facing--Are there doors that aren’t working? Are there bathrooms that aren’t stocked? Are there resources that students don’t know in terms of….what’s readily available to them?—while the institution tries to tackle the big housing and parking issues,” she said.  

Vice President – (Vacant) 

Treasurer Carnes – Presented SGA budget overview. Also presented changes to SGAC policy. 

Chief of Staff Peters: Updating SGA roster. 

Committee Reports -- 

Rules Committee: Working on incorporating Roberts Rules of Order. 

Student Voice Reports -- 

Honors College Senators: O-Hall LLC grown from 15 to 30 students. New point system for college. A lot of students dislike new location from UC to HRP. Many seem to think move resulted in less interaction with others outside the college, senator said. 

Old Business -- 

SGA GPA Requirement

Carnes asked the assembly for feedback on a previous year’s proposal to raise the SGA GPA membership requirement from 2.0 to 2.5. He said he is reconsidering the proposed benefits, but would like the assmebly’s feedback. 

Sen. [McCaro?] said SGA members are leaders and asked if members aren’t holding higher standard, then who will want to follow SGA members as leaders? 

Sen. Bennett said 2.5 would align UT-Tyler with rest of UT-System.

Sen. Rolling: Opposed the increase. She expressed concern that students lower than 2.5 GPA may be overlooked by an assembly with 2.5 GPA minimum.  

SGA closed discussion without action. 

New Business -- 

New Senator Swear-ins

President Dix swore in new senators (presumably from last week’s student election). 

Secretary Election

SGA elected Senator Precious Henry to the vacant senator position. Henry is a junior and the current president of The Black Student Association. In her campaign speech to the assembly, she spoke of being a friendly face to students for student government and plans to steward SGA’s Instagram and social media accounts.

Senators McCono, Templeton, Bruce, Bennet, Luna and [Oteel?] made comments in support of Henry, along with Sen. Rolling, who said she also serves as The Black Student Association’s Vice President.

Henry defeated challenger Sen. Savannah Tropp. Tropp received comments of support from Senators Bennet, Holman, Luna and another senator I could not identify.  

SGA Budget  

Treasurer Carnes presented the proposed operating budget for student government for the academic year. The budget originally included a new $1,350 dollar “Safety Net” budget line, which Carnes said was in case “something happens and there is a lack of money and we need some money, then there is some money set aside for it.” 

However, Senator Bennett successfully led a motion to amend the budget to change this line to instead fund student government’s transitionary period over the summer.  The assembly subsequently approved the proposed budget as amended.

Appropriations Committee Rules Changes

The assembly approved some minor wording changes to The Student Government Appropriations Committee Rules. (This is the committee student organizations work with to receive funding for their organization and organization events.) 

One new rule adopted is that student organizations now must submit their funding requests at least two weeks before their event for approval. Another new proposed new rule is for requestors to submit a follow-up form to the SGA treasurer after their event. 

The assembly adopted all of the proposed changes. The SGAC Rules are amended.  

Executive Board Swear-ins

There were some vacancies to the Student Government Executive Board, such as the vice president and secretary role. The secretary role SGA filled by internal election, but both the vice president and treasurer role filled theirs by succession.

Former-Treasurer Robert Carnes accepted the vice president role and Former-Chief of Staff Soren Peters accepted the treasurer role. President Dix swore-in both during this meeting, along with Precious Henry who won the secretary election earlier in the meeting.

The Chief of Staff position is now open for an internal SGA election. Both Sen. Bennet and Sen. Holman declined nomination. More nominations may occur next week. Election date is undecided for now. 

Advisor Comments 

SGA Advisor said this was a great meeting and he is looking forward to a full executive board. Neaves expressed his opposition to raising SGA’s GPA requirement because he wants all students to be able to participate in SGA if they can. 

Neaves also expressed support for seeing SGA’s budget increase. 

Meeting adjourned after 1 hour and 51 minutes.

Meeting video available on YouTube. 

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Twitter: @Jhescock12

Feature Image: Via Flickr. (Source unknown!)

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