The Slippery Rock Student Government Association (SRSGA) was at its busiest Feb. 21 after taking vote on 17 motions, including the addition of six new senators.
The new senators will fill mainly specialized seats for specific colleges and student status.
Both Sydney Kaecher and Helena Townsend were unanimously approved as graduate senators. Sydney Montana will serve as a freshman senator and Earnest Zilka will take the last commuter senator seat.
Deryke Ramsey was the only senator confirmed that will sit in a college senate seat. He was confirmed as a college of business senator.
Gabriella Delcoco was the only at-large senator added Monday.
The addition of six new senators leaves the body with 12 vacant seats going into election season. Packets for the 2022-2023 Senate opened last week.
Montana is just one of a few senators confirmed who are student-athletes. Along with volleyball, the homeland security major is also an Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) cadet and hopes to bring her unique experience to the Senate.
“I am a military kid, so I grew up moving around,” Montana said.
Both of Montana’s parents served in the military. Along with being a stepping stone in her own college career, Montana hopes to “bridge the gap” between student government and athletics.
With the College of Health breaking from the current College of Health, Education and Science in the fall, the senate body is planning to change its structure accordingly.
The senate debated an amendment that will add four college of health senate seats while shrinking the number of at-large senate seats from 12 to eight.
The senate has 43 senate seats and eight executive board members. Those numbers will not change if the amendment passes.
In a procedural error, the senate initially passed the amendment but was informed by Parliamentarian Nic Condon that the body must reconsider the motion, then table it, per the body’s constitution.
SRSGA President Mia Graziani was asked why the Senate would not expand with the college split. The decision was made to keep the number of seats the same since at-large seats are hard to fill throughout the year, Graziani said.
The Senate also approved a shuffle of funding from reserves to new initiatives after receiving nearly $30,000 in new requests for consideration. The requests are spread over five organizations.
Club Baseball and Men’s Rugby were approved to receive $1,375 and $2,265 for transportation to games. Funding for Men’s Rugby will cover the cost of hiring medical personnel during games.
To cover the cost of powerlifting meets and transportation, Rock Powerlifting was approved for $4,000.
SRU Winter Guard is looking to compete in the Winter Guard International World Championships at Dayton, Ohio. The club was approved for $10,250 to pay for bussing, hotels and practice space.
Black Action Society was approved for $10,000 to help pay for the transportation, meals and fees for their upcoming cultural inversion trip.
Both the American Marketing Association and Clarinet Choir at SRU received $500 in conference grants.
The SRSGA also approved the university’s newest student organization, Rock Racing. The club, which had been working over the past two years to become recognized, will build race cars and put them to the test on the track.
The program had gone out of its way to make sure it operates in a safe manner, Condon said. They added the club will be “an asset to the engineering department.”
Before heading out for spring break, the SRSGA will meet in the March 7 at 5 p.m. in the Smith Student Center (SSC).
