Student Government Association (SGA) President Haley Vest began the Senate’s Tuesday, Oct. 1 meeting with the swearing in of Tristan Cunninghman as Residential and Commuter Life Advisory Board representative. The SGA then went into a special open forum regarding parking and transportation in the Longwood community.
For more information about this session, see page one article “SGA Holds Special Open Forum to Address Parking and Transportation Concerns.”
The SGA then went into a general open forum. According to a student in the gallery, there are student concerns about faculty’s use of Instructure’s Canvas, the university’s Learning Management system, or lack thereof in some cases.
Vice President Steven Sommer said he will write a request to Faculty Senate. The plan is to ask that faculty post syllabi on Canvas at minimum.
For Vest’s Executive Report, she mentioned that Longwood is almost losing its first place spot in the state-wide university competition for the largest amount of students signed up for online voter registration tool TurboVote.
She said Christopher Newport University is very close to Longwood in the race. She encouraged students to tell others about TurboVote to continue to increase the amount of Longwood students registering with the tool.
Historian Paige Rollins then brought two constitutions to the Senate for approval. The Senate approved several revisions to The Rotunda’s constitution.
The motion to approve the constitution for the Operation Smile Club also passed. According to a club representative, the Operation Smile Club’s mission is to help children in third world countries with cleft lips and cleft palates, increase awareness of the international organization and what they do, promote leadership and empowering students and fundraise. She said it takes only $240 for a child to have this type of surgery.
Treasurer Alex Julian then went into this week’s Student Finance Committee (SFC) report. The SFC meets every Thursday
in Lankford Student Union’s Amelia Room at 6 p.m. Julian recommended that senators attend to understand the process of money allocation.
On behalf of SFC, Julian moved to allocate $222.77 to Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity a for rental car fee. Phi Beta Sigma previously drove to a national conference in Philadelphia.
The organization was allocated funding last semester, but was not able to receive it because SGA’s fiscal year ended on July 1.
The Senate moved to re-allocate the funds. Vest said the SGA will work hard to ensure students understand the allocation policy to prevent this issue from occurring again.
The SGA approved the motion to allocate $5,000 to the Student Union Advisory Board for this year’s Howl-O-Scream trip to Busch Gardens.
These funds will pay for two buses, including the Longwood Bus and a charter bus, and a partial ticket discount for students to alleviate the overall cost.
Next week’s SGA Meeting will take place in the BC rooms of the Student Union at 3:45 p.m.
