Student Government held its sixth meeting of the semester Nov. 10 and focused on an expansion to the SG executive structure, event funding and a presentation on alumni relations.
Neuroscience senior and SG President David Baker said that the election’s board will be working directly with Student Affairs’ Director of Data Analytics, Training & Assessment Ray Johnson, with hopes that it will give SG more control over what goes out in the final ballots. Baker also said that he was aiming to revamp the Student Fee Advisory Committee.
“These meetings are open to the public, they oversee how student fees are spent,” Baker said. “We have never really had a guest there.”
The senate considered six resolutions. The first — “Bylaw Amendment to Establish a Likert Rating System and Formal Qualitative Review Process for Executive Officers of the Senate” — was carried over from the last meeting. In addition to establishing a system for regular review of SG executive officers, it outlined rules for recall elections if officers fall below 50% senate approval. The bylaw amendment passed.
The second resolution — “Resolution on the amendment of the Student Government Constitution to create a Historian position and update executive responsibilities” — would create a new SG executive officer position, the eponymous historian, to oversee SG records, manage SG’s file systems and storage and assist with transitions between different executive teams. The resolution passed in the senate. Since it is a constitutional amendment, the resolution will now go on to a university-wide student vote. The amendment will be voted on during the fall special election which will start Nov. 30 once students have returned from fall break and end Dec. 2. If a runoff is needed, it will be held Dec. 4.
The third resolution — “Resolution on the Creation of Executive Cabinets to Help with Executive Officer’s Responsibilities” — would create two student cabinets, one for the president and one for the vice president, which would support the SG executives with their various responsibilities. Two chief of staff positions would be created to oversee each cabinet, and the number of members involved in the cabinet would be at the discretion of the president or vice president as needed.
Senators like Alnoor Budhwani expressed concern that creating new leadership positions in SG could stop new senators from getting involved in the senate. Senator Jasmine Kouhestani echoed this concern and argued the president might give their cabinet too much work. Green Initiative Chair Colton Rupe motioned to open the cabinet to all students, not just members of SG — this then led to a heated debate which ultimately resulted in the senate holding revotes on the amendment until no senators said “aye.” The senate ultimately voted unanimously against the amendment to the resolution, thus only senators would be eligible to serve on the cabinets.
As debate continued, the senate pushed to transform the cabinets from a full constitutional amendment into an ad-hoc committee instead. Ultimately, the resolution passed in its revised ad-hoc form, which senators said would allow the senate to trial-run the cabinets.
Around 7:15 p.m., the end of the debate on the resolution, numerous senators had already left. Fearing a loss of quorum, the SG executive team moved to hear allocations immediately before the rest of the items on the agenda.
“Y’all really don’t want your events funded do you,” Legislative Chair and political science sophomore Anointing Okereke said. “Let’s get to these allocations.”
The senate considered five allocations. The first allocation, presented by Rupe, set aside $292.56 for a Winter Market event organized alongside the Small Business Owners Club. SG is paying for lanyards, campus facility fees and winter-themed decorations for the event. According to the resolution, last year’s market made over $1,000 in profit, $400 of which were donated to local domestic violence shelters. This year, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the North Texas Food Bank. SG Treasurer Sebastian Perez noted that SG bylaws did not allow them to fund student organizations if they had not already requested funding from the Student Organization Center. Rupe said he did not know whether the Small Business Owners Club had gone through the SOC yet; he also mentioned SG’s sponsorship was currently not on the marketing for the event. The allocation was passed, contingent on whether the Small Business Owners Club had requested funding.
The second allocation set aside $119.14 for snacks, fidget toys and stuffed animals which will be handed out during the fall lavender graduation — a semesterly event hosted by SG to celebrate LGBTQ+ graduates. Lavender graduation this year will be held Dec. 9 from 11 a.m. to noon in the Galaxy Rooms. The allocation passed.
The third allocation set aside $788.88 for SG’s semesterly “Final Scream” event. This fall’s scream will be held Dec. 3 from 7–10 p.m. at the Plinth. In addition to 40 cheese and 10 pepperoni pizzas, the senate purchased holiday cookies and Capri Sun pouches to give out to students interested in joining the group scream.
The fourth allocation set aside $153.22 for the “Know your future event” — hosted alongside the International Students and Scholars Office and the Health Professions Advising Center — which will teach international pre-health students how their visa status may impact internships. The event did not have a scheduled date as of publication. The allocation passed.
The fifth allocation set aside $9.35 to purchase “thesynergysummit.org” from Cloudflare so that SG’s upcoming Synergy Summit could have its own website for at least one year. The allocation passed.
Student Affairs senator Hassan Alfarhan said that SG would have to buy new plates since they had completely run out.
“We’re out of plates for Senate pizza along with our events,” Alfarhan said.
The fourth resolution — “Resolution on the Amendment of the Bylaws of Student Government to Add a Historian Position as Part of the Senate” — was passed by the senate. After it was passed, Budhwani asked if the senate still maintained quorum — it had lost quorum.
Without quorum, the remaining roughly 20 senators listened, without the ability to vote on, the fifth resolution of the night, presented by Budhwani. Budhwani’s resolution, “In support of The Students Anonymous Public Comment Form,” was a heavily edited version of the previous “In support of ‘The Voices of The Students’ Anonymous Tipline Form” first heard Oct. 13. The new version removed the liaison position from the resolution. Baker said that he was concerned that this revised version of the resolution still had clauses which openly contradicted themselves.
The meeting also included a 30-minute presentation from Aisha Dibaki and Ashfia Salemin, respectively the associate director of annual giving and associate director of global engagement in the UTD alumni office. Dibaki and Salemin went over what the alumni office, specifically its Alumni and Constituent Engagement Team, was and their overarching goals to support alumni and current students through philanthropy. Dibaki said that roughly 70% of UTD alumni stayed in the North Texas area which made it easier to host in-person events with alumni and current students.
“If you own a pair of Temoc socks, then you have donated to the Comet Cupboard,” Dibaki said. “It is a way for students to give back to the university. We give a portion of all profits from the alumni shop to the university to help students… people give because they want students to use services”
Student Government meetings are open to the public. The next senate meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 24 in the SU Galaxy Rooms.