On Thursday evening, the student senate passed a bill moving $7,000 into the Campus Organization account from the Reserve for Contingencies Account. The Diversity Programming Committee will receive these funds to fund diversity programs on campus.
Decreased enrollment and a 60 percent cut in the Student Activity Fee — which the campus privilege fee funds — caused a lack of funds in the Diversity Programming Committee.
“At this time, we have about $200,000 sitting in that reserve account, so obviously that should be spent on worthwhile activities and opportunities for students,” Maggie Billman, speaker pro tempore and junior in pre-professional secondary education, said.
Billman said the Diversity Programming Committee account has about $12,000 left and $19,000 worth of activities approved by the committee, so the added $7,000 should cover those.
Additionally, speaker of student senate and senior in political science and communication studies Nathan Bothwell encouraged everyone with even a remote interest in participating in Student Governing Association to file by the general elections deadline of 5 p.m. Feb. 19.
“I’m going to be quite honest with you, election filing numbers are quite low,” Bothwell said.
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“Livability
Bothwell said with the ongoing pandemic, SGA lacked many opportunities to do in-person support and campaigning face-to-face.
“I know this year has been really weird and we’ve been mostly online so there haven’t been as many fun things, but I really want to stress that if you’re going to be here next year I would highly recommend putting your name on the list,” Bothwell said.
The primary election for student body president will take place from 8 a.m. Feb. 23 to 6 p.m. Feb. 24.
Bothwell said the senate agenda this week was smaller than usual because the rolling blackouts earlier in the week led to canceled or asynchronous committee meetings.
“Typically that’s where committees review legislation, so most of the legislation that we had last week is still in committee,” Bothwell said. “It’ll be more substantial next week.”
The student senate will reconvene at 7 p.m. Feb. 25 via Zoom. A hybridized version of student senate will return at an undetermined point in the future. Students interested in attending future meetings can email Bothwell at ndbothwell@ksu.edu.
