Student senate fails to meet quorum, voting for executive positions to start Monday

Analicia Haynes, Managing Editor

The Student Senate did not meet quorum Wednesday night and only gave their committee reports and executive reports during the meeting.

However, voting for the executive board positions will be next Monday and Tuesday.

Four students will be running unopposed for the fall student government executive board positions.

Rebecca Cash, the current student vice president for academic affairs, is running for student body president; Zac Cohen, the current student vice president for student affairs, is running for executive vice president; Tyler Stoklosa, a current student senator, is running for student vice president of student affairs and Carson Gordon, a current senator, is running for student vice president of academic affairs.

Voting will take place on April 2 and 3. Unofficial election results will be announced on April 4.

Student Body President Luke Young asked senators to inform their classes about voting and encouraged them to vote as well.

Cohen said he originally wanted the student senate to vote on the FY 2019 budgets for Student Government, University Board and the Student Recreation Center that were already approved by the apportionment board.

“I’m going to talk more in depth about everything that was happened by the Apportionment Board next week because I actually do that when I bring up the bills,” Cohen said.

Cohen said since Apportionment Board meetings are over for the year, the student senate is tasked with approving the budgets.

Because the year is coming to an end and the bills need to be approved, Cohen said he might have to request emergency legislation so the senate can vote on them next week instead of tabling them.

“We’re not really in a rush though because we finished two weeks earlier than expected,” Cohen said.

Young said in his report that the Military Student Assistance Center is in the process of constructing a lounge specifically for veterans in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

“They are working on finishing that up to give our veteran students a place on campus to call their own, which is really great for those who are coming back to get their education after they served our country,” Young said.

Young also encouraged senators to sign up for Panther Day of Service, which will be on April 7.

“It’s a great way to help out your community and be a leader on campus,” he said.

The student senators that were in attendance during the meeting had the opportunity to write down the name of a senator who they thought should be “Senator of the Year,” or “Senator of the Semester.”

Cohen said he will contact the senators who were not at the meeting and ask for their vote individually and said he will collect all the names and tally up the names and order the plagues for the people with the most mentions.

The Student Senate is expected to meet on April 4 and vote on bill proposing constitutional revisions and a bylaw change that were introduced to the Senate during its March 21 meeting.

There are over 20 revisions to the student government constitution and Cohen said at the March 21 meeting that the last time it was updated was in 2014.

The bylaw change proposes that given a special circumstance regarding a senator who is unable to serve one semester but wants to serve during the second, that the Senate can take a vote on whether or not the person can serve instead of the speaker and the executive board making the decision or guessing what they should do.

Analicia Haynes can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]