After a month long hiatus over winter break, the Student Government Association (SGA) held their first Senate meeting of the new year on Tuesday, Jan. 24. To start the meeting, they opened up nominations for executive senator. Senator Shannon Rosedale, who filled the spot of junior class president on Senate, secured an internship that conflicted with her time on Senate.
Junior Class Vice President Gina DeMarco vacated her position as executive senator to fill in Rosedale's position. Senators Scott Hull, Donald Knight and Sean Gaines are in the running to fill the position, which will be determined next week.
Leighan Worden was sworn in as the Honor Board representative and David Keran was sworn in as a Judicial Board justice. During the open forum segment of the meeting, Gaines suggested Longwood give a small allotment of printing for students to utilize to print off syllabi, schedules and other important papers for class. The SGA is going to look into some different possibilities. DeMarco brought up that some individuals are curious how the addition of Longwood to the Big South might affect the amount of money students pay to their comprehensive fee.
The Senate got into a discussion about whether or not Longwood should have an attendance policy. Some senators felt that college students are adults and should have the ability to decide to miss classes without the potential penalty of failing the class. Other senators felt that the policy could allow for more situations for excused absences, such as unavoidable travel or sickness. Another senator brought up that the attendance policy could be a good tool in increasing the retention rate at the university.
SGA Historian Angela Fulks brought up that seniors that have one credit or one class to complete over the summer are not allowed to walk in May. Longwood does not have a December graduation, which means seniors who are due to graduate in Summer 2012, would not be able to walk until May 2013. Fulks was concerned that many of these students would be working full time jobs by that point and unable to come back, thus missing the opportunity to walk at all. The SGA is looking into the matter more.
Knight presented on RAVE, an anti-bullying initiative being launched on campus. This initiative, which he hopes to be as large as the Big Event and the G.A.M.E, is meant to raise awareness about cyber bullying, bullying, assault, sexual assault and other similar issues. More details will be available in the coming weeks.
During SGA President Brandon Fry's executive report, he encouraged students to come out to the Thursday, Feb. 2 pep rally for the Big South conference. He also announced that Cox Residence Hall will be available for housing during graduation, and an email with more information about that availability should be coming out soon.
The constitution for PRIDE, which used to be Unity Alliance, was approved. A total of $1,817.40 was allocated to Honor Board for their conference. A total of $3,000 was reallocated from one line item in the Colligate Pan-Hellenic Council (CPC) budget to another line item to help them bring two speakers to campus. An additional $5,500 was allocated to CPC, Peer Health Educators and Phi Beta Zeta to help pay for those speakers.
One speaker is in association with the Dove campaign and will present on inner beauty, and the other speaker will present on sexual assault. PRIDE was allocated $2,000 to bring a speaker on sexual identity to campus. A total of $89 was allocated to Virginia21 to pay for a hotel room while they go to Richmond, Va. for a lobbying event in February.
The SGA approved Sara Bendrick as SGA Auditor. She will be sworn in at the next SGA meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 30.
