The Slippery Rock Student Government Association held its last formal meeting Monday night and recapped some of the items that were accomplished in the fall semester.
SGA President Logan Steigerwalt presented a PowerPoint which detailed some areas to which SGA focused some of their efforts. Steigerwalt said this was a team effort with each member of the senate working to help the students of SRU enjoy their time here.
“We accomplished a lot this semester, and I’m very happy with the progress that has been made in just one semester,” Steigerwalt said. “We started a campus-wide social cause with our settle for the student hashtag during the strike, which received enormous support. We hosted the BSGP conference here and had a large attendance from 11 schools across the state. We approved 17 new clubs and organizations on campus, as well as $40,000 in new initiative requests this semester. Finally, we were able to bring Dear World to campus, which allowed for students to communicate their thoughts through a unique expression on their bodies.”
Steigerwalt showed a video titled “SGA is….” which showed members of student government, and what is SGA is for them and what they bring to student government.
SGA hosted Dr. Itzi Metzli, English department, and Phoebe Hopkins, assistant head coach for the SRU Field Hockey team, to discuss the formation of SR Stars. This group will aim to help those students of different groups feel safe and included in all of the SRU community as they should be, Hopkins said. Metzli said a community discussion on these types of topics will be held next semester and is open to anyone in the community.
“We are forming this group to stand up for those students who deal with issues of racism and sexism, either on campus or at home,” Hopkins said. “It will include many more problems other than these, but these will be the focus of emphasis for this group.”
Dr. David Wilmes, associate provost for student success, was in attendance to discuss the changes to the student code of conduct, which will go into effect next semester if approved by the council of trustees.
“The last revision to the code of conduct was in 2004, and 12 years is a long time to not update the code of conduct,” Wilmes said. “There was no table of contents so we’ve added that, create an FAQ, and changed the code of conduct into one long 90 page PDF. Title IX will be embedded into the code of conduct as well. We wanted to make it very clear and accessible for students.”
SGA also approved two new initiative requests and added a new club to campus.
The Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA) was approved $2,200 for transportation to the Women’s March on Washington on January 21. Victoria Davis, FMLA president, said the march is a tremendous thing and will be a great experience for all who attend.
“This march is in support of women’s issues, LGBT community issues and racial issues,” Davis said.
SGA also approved $3,500 which will go towards the fees used for the new OrgSync operating system, which will be in place next semester. Brian Welsh, vice president of finance, discussed how this is a new technology based budgeting system.
“This new budgeting system will bring everything student leaders are doing to an online system,” Welsh said.
SGA would recognize Slippery Rock Parkour and Meditation Club as a new club. This club will help those students build a positive atmosphere and well-being through parkour, a club representative said.
Finally, SGA would approve the formal minutes from November 21.
The next formal meeting will not occur until the spring semester starts up.
