Stetson's Student Government Association (SGA) met on Wednesday, December 7 at 7:30 p.m.
The Flag resolution that passed last week will go into effect during finals week when the flag will be ceremoniously taken down and given to the current Stetson Veterans Organization President, who graduates in December.
The new pet policy will go into effect in January. Pets will only be allowed in pet buildings. Pets will not be allowed in academic buildings. Only service animals or service animals in training will be allowed in academic buildings. Please remember that emotional support animals do not count as service animals and are not allowed in academic buildings.
The Carlton Student Union Building (CUB) is being torn down. While projected to be finished in the 2017 spring semester, it will not be finished until 2018. Offices that were in the CUB will be moved to Elizabeth until further notice. The Commons will be closed. The Coffee Shop will be in the SGA and SAFAC rooms. Johnny Rockets and Einstein Bagel Bros are both projected to stay open.
The Culture Credit Committee was impressed by the resolution that SGA passed earlier in the year. The Committee is still working on fixing the cultural credit system. However, it wants more student input on how the system will change. If you have any ideas, please tell them to a senator.
Last week's Resolution on Accessibility passed with 24 senators voting for it and 2 abstaining from voting.
The resolution brought to Senate that night was the Resolution to Create a Revolving Green Fund. This project has been worked on for three years before it came to Senate. Should it be passed, the Revolving Green Fund would add $10 to the student activities fee per semester for the foreseeable future and would be implemented in fall 2017. The money would be monitored by an Environmental Working Group which would present ideas for reducing carbon production at Stetson to the SGA senators. The Environmental Working Group's actions would be controlled by SGA. In order for the Revolving Green Fund to go into effect, it has to be passed by Senate before February 16.
Many Senators were not impressed with the evidence presented by the authors of the Resolution. 152 people answered a survey last year about the possibility of a green fund. 56 of those people were Environmental Science majors. Because 152 people is barely 2% of Stetson's population and because 1/3 of that 2% was biased, the Senators did not believe that their constituents, the rest of the school, had any say in the matter. The Resolution was tabled for the rest of the semester while the author worked to release the survey again, but this time online and to all the students at Stetson University. This survey should be coming out soon over the winter break. Please answer this survey as it will help us decide whether or not to pass this resolution.
With winter break and finals coming up, the SGA committees did not have much to say. The Campus Life committee is working on putting tampons and pads in the female and non-binary bathrooms, adding umbrella bags and dog bags in strategic areas around the school, providing the school with better condoms, and working to fix the sprinkler system. Some students may have noticed that the sprinklers tend to go off during school hours when they shouldn't or that the sprinklers over-water the grass.
For any questions or suggestions for SGA, please, stop by the Student Government Association room in the CUB before the winter break. It is on the right as soon as you enter the CUB. After winter break, the SGA room will be moved to Elizabeth 113. If you would like to sit in on Senate and hear everything in person, Senate takes place in LBC 108 every Wednesday night at 7:30. There will not be Senate next Wednesday due to finals. Senate will return in January, 2017.
