By Jesse BadeStaff Writer

The Student Government Association went from eight committees to seven this past Thursday when the decision was made by senate to combine the Student Services and the Academic Affairs Committee. The problem: numbers.

While originally the plan was to hold elections for the position of Academic Affairs Chair to go into the semester with a full cabinet, Jesse Lender, Student Services Chair, motioned to stop the election and combine the two committees.

“The numbers are extremely low. There are less people here present than what’s documented in the agenda,” Lender said. “We are here for Hofstra and we don’t even have a depiction of a number that would represent the student body.”

While the roster stated that SGA had a sufficient body of senators, six members on the roster were no longer a part of SGA and others were not in attendance, leaving 17 voting senators present at the meeting.

“We don’t have the people to have the two committees…and I would rather have less committees with more people making us stronger, than more committees with two people which is unconstitutional,” said Cameron Freitag, Club Relations Chair.

Freitag and Lender also were in agreement that the senate would be able to get more done with fewer committees and focus on adding new members to SGA.

Billy Finnegan, Public Relations Chair, was also a supporter of the combination of Student Services and Academic Affairs.

“I think with the number of people that we have and the number of initiatives we have going…it’s very, very prudent to combine these two efforts,” said Finnegan. “Especially because they are so interconnected, campus life and academic life very, very much go hand in hand.”

Finnegan explained that based on their current situation, this was the best way to go because it allows the committees to work close together to get things done. He believes that this avenue will be beneficial to SGA and the student body in this coming semester. However, Finnegan still holds out hope that the committees will separate again in the future.

“I am optimistic that we will have membership increase over the next few years and we will have the two committees separated again,” Finnegan said.