Student Government held its third meeting of the semester Sept. 30, its first meeting since the end of its fall 2025 elections, focusing on public transit and university budgets.
David Alexander, a representative for Dallas Area Rapid Transit presenting at the meeting, said DART was happy to see how involved students were with the Silver line rail project and that as of September, the line’s UTD station was 98% completed, with the nine other stations on the line sitting at or above 95% completion. Alexander said the Cotton Belt Regional Trail, which will provide pedestrian and bike paths along the Silver line route, began construction in June this year and is projected to be completed by January 2027.
Alisa Model, political science senior and Green Initiative committee member, presented the Comet Composting Training offered by the Office of Sustainability and how students can receive their own composting caddy by watching a short training video and completing a post-training quiz.
After the presentation, the 14 senators elected during the fall 2025 elections were sworn into office. The new senators include six freshman senators, two transfer senators, one graduate senator and one senator each for BAHT, BBS, JSOM, NSM and ECS.
SG passed two resolutions and two allocations during the meeting. S.R. 2025-03, a resolution authored by vice president and neuroscience junior David Baker and senator and criminology junior Jasmine Kouhestani, calls on UTD to be more transparent about budget cuts that impact students, specifically student athletes. The resolution further calls on university administrators overseeing athletics to meet more frequently with the Student Athletics Advisory Committee and for SG to create a liaison for SAAC that helps report on the issues facing NCAA student athletes at UTD.
The second resolution, S.R. 2025-04 is authored by Baker and supports the creation of a budget breakdown task force. In spring 2023, SG’s original budget task force committee created a 21-page report tracking where UTD’s money came from and what that funding was used for. The resolution calls for SG to conduct a similar analysis of the fiscal year 2026 budget to better understand the impact of budget cuts on campus. The resolution requires a final report to be prepared before the end of the fall 2025 semester.
S.A. 2025-03 is an allocation presented by Caden Brenner, diversity, equity and belonging committee chair and sociology senior. The allocation set aside $495 to pay UTDPD for security at SG’s National Coming Out Day event. SG will be hosting the event Oct. 9 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Plinth.
S.A. 2025-04 is an allocation presented by legislative affairs chair and marketing senior Tanay Shrivastav. The allocation set aside $112.93 for National Voter Education Week’s Constitution Day. SG has partnered with the Initiative for Civic Leadership, the Cornerstone Project and the Dallas County Elections Office for this event. The allocation will be used to purchase pocket constitutions and popsicles that will be handed out to students. SG and its partners anticipate a 200-person turnout for the event.
SG President and psychology senior Giana Abraham was appointed chair of the ad-hoc homecoming committee after two other senators declined their nominations. SG also appointed economics junior Ashna Karia to serve on the Committee on Student Media.
SG meetings are open to the public. The next senate meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Union Galaxy Rooms Oct. 14.