SGA Senate Meeting
March 7, 2011
This week’s meeting started off with an introduction to a new member of the SGA Senate, Chatura Nagaradona. Chatura’s position as a senate member was confirmed officially at today’s meeting. Following the introduction of Chatura, the Senate members voted for an increase allocation in the Student Organizations Fund. This will allow the Finance Board to maintain their position of providing funds for multiple Student Organizations’ events.
The next topic of discussion during this meeting was the funding by SGA for the Retriever Learning Center. For those of you who are not aware of what exactly this is, the Retriever Learning Center will be a new 24/7 study area in the library for UMBC students to utilize throughout the year. The Senate is currently working towards deciding the commitment SGA will make to support the Retriever Learning Center. Following the RLC discussion, an introduction and confirmation was made for the new Director and Assistant Director of Department of Service, Voluntarism and Awareness. Yasmin and Liz are currently working on an assortment of projects through this organization. They have many ideas and plans for the remainder of the semester.
Next, the Senate discussed this past week’s outreach hour topic. The topic of this past week was the idea of the removal of free hour. After much feedback from a variety of UMBC students, there was a general consensus that students opposed the idea of eliminating free hour. Students stated that free hour was the time for their organizations to meet collectively, for them to eat their lunch, and to meet up with friends. Commuters find that free hour is beneficial to their schedule, in order to get a break while being on campus all day. The next outreach hour, members of SGA plan to discuss registration and advising with students. Do you have any ideas on how to improve advising? Do you have any specific questions concerning registration? Come out and talk with members of SGA during outreach hours to get your answers! Stay tuned for updates from next week’s senate meeting!