This Week In Student Government - Oct. 31

 

(Source: via Flickr)

Here is a recap of The Student Government Association at UT-Tyler's Oct. 31 meeting.

Summary  

The assembly briefly heard from Staff Senate President Bruce Bettinger, installed a new College of Education & Psychology senator and reviewed its recent Midnight Breakfast event.

Speaker’s Podium - Staff Senate President Bruce Bettinger 

Issues before staff senate: 

-Parking - spent the last 3 and 4 months “beating that horse dead”. 

-There are sweeping changes to advising department. Bettinger said the advising department has had “sweeping turnover”, that they spoke at last senate and that advising plans to hire 30 advisors. 

[Mr. Bettinger is not a member of The Academic Advising Department. This author has not yet confirmed Bettinger's statements with The Academic Advising Department.] 

Mr. Bettinger is also The Coordinator of Student Financial office and does one-on-one financial counseling for students.

Question & Answer 

Some members seemed to express confusion about the difference between staff and faculty. Bettinger said [paraphrasing], Faculty members are the classroom and staff members do a variety of other jobs.
Only staff members may participate in staff senate, but they have to be below a director level to be a senator. 

Senator Bennett asked if staff senate has plans to redistrict to serve its constituents better. Bettinger replied, Yes, it is an ongoing process. The merger has made it an ongoing process. We try to match people with the best positions that are appropriate for their districts.

With respect to advising, one senator asked if his senate has ever lobbied for a higher pay increase and whether this be a solution to the advisor problem. 

“We haven’t collectively bargained,” Bettinger said, but believes there is something in the works from Academic Advising and Career Success to address the salary element.

Senator Bennett also asked if Bettinger knew about the funding sources for academic advisors. Bettinger said he was unsure.

[End of Speaker’s Podium.]

Officer Reports 

• President Dix - Met with Dean Swimberghe about the Soules Advisory council. Soules senators will “take that from here,” she said.
• Dix also said she spoke with Mr. Crumley, Senior Vice President Ona Tolliver and Provost Dr. Amir Mirmiran about parking. These individuals will potentially come to student government soon and talk about what new parking lots are going to look like, she said. [This is a follow-up from student government’s Oct. 10 meeting when the assembly talked at length about parking and generally disapproved of new parking lots’ possible impact on campus aesthetics, specifically green space. See here for recap. ]
• Dix said that in coming meetings, SGA will map out all questions it wants to ask administrators to ensure it hits each point it wants to "hit all of the target points that we want to hit." 
• Continuing with her report, Dix also said she attended two meetings of The Student Fee Advisory Committee’s (SFAC’s) on Oct. 30 and Oct. 31. Sen. Bennett chosen as chairman. She also attended SGA executive board meeting and met with staff senate president.
• Vice President Carnes- (Absent)
  
• Secretary Henry - Posted Midnight Breakfast on Instagram. Also making more posts of pictures from that night.
• Treasurer Peters - Attended SFAC and has been going over appropriations requests.
• Chief of Staff Tropp – Met with Rules Committee. Further update in committee reports.

Committee Reports

• Events - (No report. Vice President Carnes absent.)
  
• Appropriations - Didn’t meet last week and there were no requests.
• Rules - Had first meeting. Will send committee the proposed changes that Sen. Menhennett submitted. Also received an email from me (James Hescock). Said committee will go over an essay I wrote about getting rid of the presidential veto in the next committee meeting. (Here are the links to the email and essay I sent to Chief of Staff Tropp. ) 
• Communications - Trying to post on Instagram to get people to come to open forum.
• Environmental Sustainability Committee - No report. 
  

Student Voice Reports 

• Honors College – College now has an Honors Logos Student Senate. SGA senators representing Honors Received voice reports from executive board, freshman and sophomore requesting more service events for Honors students. Also senators said honors point system seems to be going well. All programs for O-Hall LLC have over an 80 percent participation rate. Senator said this received Dean Pettee’s attention. Global Quiz night was a success. College trying to increase its enrollment to 270 students.
• College of Arts & Sciences - Met with Dean Neil Gray. Dean said he really cares about students and that he is always available. An upcoming spring showcase will focus on CAS research. Also a college-wide CAS award ceremony coming in spring.
• College of Education & Psychology – Senators said many students concerned that education degree plans have classes that don’t seem to equate with what students want to do. So education department looking at revising degree plan (said this senator). Also, education students are without a permanent advisor. They currently have a temporary one. Senator said department hopes to start interviewing by end of semester. (This is an unconfirmed report by this blog’s author.) These senators now also have scheduled monthly meetings with new dean. One senator said she has a meeting next week to examine whether department can pay psychology research assistants.

Old Business - [None] 

New Business - 

Special Election

The assembly voted to confirm former SGA Senator Nancy Hall to the open College of Education and Psychology seat. Hall had previously occupied the School of Nursing seat, but leadership learned she was ineligible due to not being a student of School of Nursing. She now occupies the Education and Psychology seat and received multiple positive comments in favor of her continuation with student government during senate deliberations. 

For the backstory, according to President Dix, Hall unsuccessfully ran for Education & Psychology seat in fall elections. Dix invited her to join SGA for School of Nursing seat when she saw Hall was a write-in candidate for School of Nursing. However, after some discussion about senator eligibility requirements in the Oct. 10 meeting, Hall voluntarily disclosed that she was not a constituent for her position. (Not a Nursing student.) 

Her occupation of the Nursing seat appeared to be the result of a misunderstanding about her status by President Dix following fall elections and by herself about senator eligibility rules. Other senators supported her continuation with SGA as Senator for Education & Psychology and some said Hall has been a dedicated SGA member from her start. 

Midnight Breakfast Fall Recap  

One senator asked why Midnight Breakfast was in a Wednesday instead of a Friday. 

Dix said it is a tradition to hold it on the Wednesday before Halloween. Senator Bennett said it is also because many students go home on Fridays. 

Among the positive feedback, senators said many people loved the tshirts, karaoke and having the event in the Patriot Zone.  

Among senators’ comments about future improvements were the need to order more large t-shirts, that the music playlist could use improvement and crowd control. The senate had a lengthier discussion about the challenges and necessities of its method to crowd control, saying, in part, that SGA has individuals sneak-in without a ticket in the past and leaders discussed how their current check-in and crowd control methods try to prevent that. 

[Discussion closed.]

[The following segment occurred after Advisor Comments because President Dix said she forgot to close new business and went straight to Advisor Comments by mistake. So, President Dix re-opened New Business to allow for the senator’s question.]

A senator moved to open discussion about event dress code. He asked for leadership to clarify dress code for SGA events. 

President Dix said, It kind of depends. (Paraphrase.) General Assembly is business casual or professional (depending if there is a VIP guest). 

Advisor Comments:

• Good to hear SGA and staff senate is working on some of the same things SGA is. Important that we are working on shared governance, he said.
• I am impressed with the quality of your student voice reports, he said. 
• Midnight Breakfast: “Ya’ll crushed it.” Advised senate to keep the event on a Wednesday. 
• Neaves said he does GPA checks once a year because of the time it takes to do them. 
• Asked to meet with Rules Committee. 

Announcements: 

• There is a leadership development workshop available. See Advisor Neaves for more information. 
• Student Regent Applications due November 20th. 
  

*Meeting adjourned after 1 hour 18 minutes. 

Meeting video available on YouTube.   

*NOTE: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Soren Peters as vice president. Robert Carnes is student government vice president. 

Sign-up for my newsletter! 

X: @Jhescock12

Feature Image: Via Flickr. (Source unknown!)