By Kara McGrath, Staff Writer
The Student Government Association (SGA) discussed many issues (and left some un-discussed) at an unusually long Senate meeting on Tuesday night. To start, the SGA Judicial Panel made a long anticipated announcement about the SGA vs. The Hofstra Chronicle case which started last semester.
According to SGA Vice President Akeem Mellis, The Chronicle was audited last semester, which eventually led to the Chronicle’s budget being frozen by SGA. The comptroller of SGA claimed to have sent a letter about a meeting between SGA and The Chronicle, but Chronicle staff members claimed to never have received such a letter. The Chronicle then said that their income could not be audited, because they understood that, according to SGA policies, no club’s income could be audited. Since SGA disagreed with this statement, the matter was brought to court.
Judicial Panel Chief Justice Yaneke Douglas announced the verdict: the matter is to be settled outside of court, and the SGA constitution and policy series regarding auditing needs to be looked at. “No one was, per say, guilty or innocent,” Douglas said.
Ryan Hopkins, a TV/Film major from Boston, was elected into the Senate Tuesday. Although he could not provide the other Senators with a quotation from “Mean Girls,” as they asked, he did reveal that his great, great, great (and so forth) grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence.
Two new clubs were passed at the Senate meeting. The Actuarial Science Club, will allow actuarial students to come together to support and help each other learn. The Rock Climbing Club, plans to become a competitive sport team who will compete with other collegiate teams.
The next topic up for debate was a proposal brought forth by Senator Gregg Albaum, Senator Mike Hershfield, Academic Affairs Chairman James Wells, and Student Services Chair Luke Miedreich. The proposal stated “At least five and a quarter percent of the annual budget must be appropriated to the Inter Fraternity-Sorority Council (IFSC) during the annual budget weekend meeting pending a proper budget proposal and supporting documentation submitted by the IFSC through the budget proposal process.” The main reason this proposal was drafted was that about eight percent of Hofstra University’s undergraduate student population is involved in Greek life, and that they are trying to make a positive and strong comeback since past years’ repercussions against them have been recently lifted.
This topic sparked a hectic debate amongst the Senators. Some members, such as Comptroller Marquis and Senator Tyler Greenpope, didn’t disagree with the proposal, but believed that media clubs, such as Entertainment Unlimited, Hofstra Concerts and The Hofstra Chronicle, should also be guaranteed a certain percentage, since a large percentage of the student population are also involved in these types of clubs. Others, such as Appropriations Committee Chair Yeyoung Lee, believed that IFSC should instead be taught how to make a proper budget proposal. Lee said that if a budget proposal is made correctly and outlines events and items which SGA is allowed to fund, appropriations would most likely be able to allocate all funds requested. After a vote by secret ballot, there were 24 in favor of the proposal, 17 against and 2 abstentions. This is not the 2/3 needed, so the proposal was not passed.
After a resolution, submitted by Senator Franky Vivacqua to add more stop signs in parking lots around campus was passed, the two remaining resolutions were tabled for next week’s meeting, since the meeting was running longer than usual, and many of the Senators had to leave.
Pictured above, Student Government Association Vice President Akeem Mellis collects votes from SGA senators at their meeting on Tuesday in the Student Center Greenhouse. (Sean M. Gates/The Chronicle )
