Following Pizza and Politics that featured Matt Casey, director of governmental relations from the Kansas Board of Regents, and Sue Peterson, director of governmental relations in the president’s cabinet, Student Governing Association student senate convened for a special meeting in the Kansas State Alumni Association.
On Thursday, SGA introduced plans for a new installment of the Special Committee on Membership and filled vacant seats in the legislative and executive branches.
The Special Committee on Membership, created at the discretion of the speaker of the student senate Ryan Kelly, junior in communication studies, is meant to address “ongoing, systemic issues dealing with disproportionate Student Government membership.”
The committee will be chaired by Lily Colburn, freshman in political science and SGA intern, if passed by the student senate after Thanksgiving.
In the past, the committee has been tasked with developing programs and solutions to the aforementioned problem regarding student representation in the governing body. The 2017-2018 committee wrote the current SGA intern program that is new to this academic year.
As prescribed by the legislation, this committee, made up of a mixture of 11 student senators and at-large committee members, will be tasked with evaluating if the SGA intern program’s structure “allows it to effectively meet its intended goals.”
Additionally, student senate approved the appointment of Derek Hildreth, junior in accounting and finance, to a vacant seat in the College of Business Administration caucus and Andrye Denny, junior in communication studies, to the newly-vacant student organization and ARH outreach director position.
Shelby Carpenter, senior in elementary education, and Hannah Heatherman, junior in finance and management, announced their plans to establish a temporary working committee aimed at correcting the existing governing documents.
Carpenter said the committee will be an optional group working on editing the documents to represent current practices within SGA.
“This isn’t the most glamorous working committee by any means,” Heatherman said. “This is a really good ‘leave it better than when you found it’ project.”
The senate will reconvene after fall break on Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Wildcat Chambers.
