SUUSA came together for their weekly senate meeting on Thursday in the Sterling R. Church Auditorium.
The meeting began with the executive board’s reports. SUUSA President Hayden Carroll discussed his time at the annual Mental Health Panel at the University of Utah. Vice President of Academics Parker Hess gave an update on the MySUU Voice. Hess said SUUSA has heard over 350 My SUU Voices.
“We had an all-time high of 45 different voices, which gave us feedback … specifically on the testing center and the university,” Hess said.
D’Mia Lamar, Vice President of Finance, discussed SUUSA’s budget report. Lamar said SUUSA has spent about 31 percent of their budget thus far and reminded the Senate to keep that in mind when looking at requests.
Vice President of Clubs Jon Baker said he froze 83 clubs off of the T-Bird Connection due to lack of registration. Baker is contacting inactive clubs to re-register them.
The meeting continued with SUUSA Committee reports, beginning with the Student Life Enhancement Committee’s coverage of the Meet Your Senator recap and the SUUSA Shark Tank, hosted on Nov. 14 at 11:30 a.m. in the Living Room of the Sharwan Smith Student Center. Committee reports followed by the Clubs and Organizations Committee and Finance Committee.
During the meeting, senators of each college gave a 1-2 minute report about each of their respective areas.
Following were motions of old business including a SUUSA workshop for a Globalization Collaboration on Feb. 1, 2018, at 1 p.m., and election bylaws revision. During previous weeks, students’ SUU Portal had a survey conducted by SUUSA for changes to the election process. According to the Chief of Staff John Zillgitt, only 112 students voted. About 60 of the 112 students voted to have all candidates for next year election run independently with no party.
HSS Senator Grace Schulz said she did not think 112 students was an accurate representation of the revision. Other senators and reps agreed with Schulz. A student in the crowd had no clue of the survey and its location in the Portal. After more discussion, the revision was tabled for a later senate meeting.
For new business, the Senate began with three Utah citizens asking SUUSA to help Utah business leaders gather signatures to put education funding on the 2018 ballot. This was another agenda portion that was tabled due to time restrictions.
Other new business included study abroad funding, American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) funding request, gathering students to senate and testing center committee updates. The ACDA funding for slightly over $1,000 was unanimously approved by the Senate, while the other topics were moved to next week’s agenda.
Students wanting to know more about SUUSA senate can attend every Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. or follow a live video of the meeting on SUUSA’s facebook.
Story By
Samantha Burfiend
webchief@suunews.com
