Two students were made probationary senators for the Student Government Association during their Sept. 22 meeting.
Stephon Moore, journalism freshman, and Brandon Smith, secondary education freshman, were voted in as the new probationary senators.
“I wanted to help people, make a difference at IUS and meet new people,” Smith said.
Matt Owen, political science junior and SGA senate chair, said the SGA held a nomination meeting earlier this month.
“Each probationary senator will be assigned a mentor so that they can get to know our by-laws and how to write a bill,” Owen said. “We will also be holding another nomination meeting in October.”
Josh Sesar, math senior and SGA senator, said he wanted Ryan Miller, education junior and SGA senator, to skip the probationary period and go straight to a full senator since he had been a senator in fall 2010.
“I would like to make a motion to suspend chapter two, section two of our by-laws to make Ryan a full senator,” Sesar said.
The motion was approved, and the by-law was suspended.
However, Owen said he thinks Miller should go through the period so he can get re-familiarized with how things work.
“We have made a lot of changes since last fall,” Owen said. “I feel that he should go through the period even though he has been a senator before.”
The motion tied, and when a tie occurs the vice president has to break it.
However, Kevin Evans, secondary education junior and SGA vice president, was not present. Instead, Josh Kornberg, communications junior and SGA president, broke the tie, making Miller a full senator.
“Our chief justice isn’t here to swear Miller in, so hopefully next week we will take care of it,” Owen said.
Kornberg also talked about student retention and handed out surveys for the SGA members to administer to students.
“I have some surveys that are mostly angled toward the Kentucky students who commute to [IU Southeast] and how the Sherman Minton Bridge shut down is affecting them,” Kornberg said. “If each of the senators could have 50 students do one survey, it would help a lot.”
Kornberg said the SGA was supposed to buy clocks last year with a $1,200 grant. However, the purchase never happened because the clocks were never bought.
“The clocks haven’t been right for a while and there isn’t much that can be done to fix them,” Kornberg said. “We need to get this going again.”
Stephen Prather, radiology junior and SGA senate pro-tempore, talked about more ways the SGA is helping with student retention through involvement.
“We came up with the questionnaire for FYS students so we could get feedback,” Prather said. “I’ve seen a lot of ‘No, I don’t know what you do.’ We need to let the students know that we are here for them and what they do.”
By BRYAN JONES
Staff
jonesbry@umail.iu.edu
