The Mississippi State University Student Association Senate met for their first business meeting of the semester Wednesday—the meeting had been postponed from the normally scheduled Tuesday night due to inclement weather. The meeting comprised of four pieces of legislation, only three of which passed, and the installment of six new senators to their positions.
The six new senators were appointed to fill the vacancies left by senators who had to resign from their positions for various reasons this semester, and they will fulfill the remainder of these positions’ terms. Jackson Prather, Jack Davis, Allison Galinsky, Jack Funderburg, Haydyn Johnson and Elliot Ware were sworn in by SA President Mayah Emerson and added to the roll.
Beginning with legislation, the Senate passed two resolutions. Resolution 14 expressed student support for the campus dining halls beginning to use a reusable to-go tray system, which would be provided by a company called OZZI.
The process of integrating OZZI with Aramark on MSU’s campus is definite, but the resolution sought to offer student approval for the project. The system will revolve around reusable plastic to-go trays, which will be available for students to use at the entry fee of $5. The fee will be a one-time buy-in to the program, for when one takes a reusable tray to-go, they need only to bring it back, scraped of bones or other refuse and receive another clean one, free of charge.
If one forgets to bring back their original tray, they must pay another $5 to receive another tray. The $5 will be charged to the student’s Flex account, but the trays can still be purchased without Flex, if so desired. This measure is an attempt to cut down on the large amount of waste created by the current to-go options.
Resolution 15 requests a one-way traffic sign be placed on the west-end bay of the parking lot adjacent to Magnolia and Oak Hall. Currently, the parking lot has no designated flow of traffic, and the west-end bay is too small to allow two lanes of traffic. Therefore, a one-way sign will be placed to prevent collisions.
Act 7 appropriates funds for multiple groups and events on MSU’s campus. Some highlights, all at $2,000 in value, include the Chinese Student Association’s 2019 Chinese New Year Gala, the Iranian Student Association’s Iranian New Year celebration and Gamma Beta Phi Honor Society for their 2nd Annual Night for St. Jude Fundraising Dinner.
Finally, some proposed changes to the SA Constitution were introduced to the floor. The changes were mostly to limit verbosity and repetition while maintaining consistency, but the motion also proposed changes to the duties of SA Executive Council members, changing the GPA requirement needed to run for office, and tweaking the election system. The most radical change would have been the change in the number of Senate seats, subtracting 16 from the total.
The most contentious aspect of the proposal during the meeting was the new GPA requirement. Under the proposed rules, the Senate and Executive Council would need to have a 3.0 GPA to run for office, but some senators felt this would limit and discourage many students. However, others argued Senate was a leadership role, and seeing as a 3.0 is Good Academic Standing, the senators in favor of the proposal felt anything less was an arbitrary value.
Two amendments were put to the floor, attempting to change the proposal to make the required GPA a 2.75. The first attempted to make a 2.75 GPA the standard for all offices, while the second attempted only to change the Senate’s requirement, but both amendments failed. Ultimately, the proposal failed, and it was tabled to be reintroduced at a later meeting.
Due to the timing of the meeting and the election season, none of the changes which would affect elections or election requirements can be implemented by any piece of legislation this semester, but a proposal could still change the duties of the offices.