The 42nd Student Senate met for the first time Oct. 15, 2009, one week after the 41st Student Senate met in the Student Union for the last time.
The final meeting of the 41st Senate was held in the Key West Ballroom from 7:09 p.m. to 8:21 p.m. Oct. 8.
After the pledge of allegiance and final roll call, SGA President Brian Peterson talked about how SGA would address several initiatives and announced that there were still several open positions in SGA, including a justice seat.
But the biggest news came from SGA Comptroller Shane Chism, who informed the Senate about a potential 32 cent fee increase, recently proposed by the Fee Assessment committee, which was set to undergo further discussion Friday.
In an e-mail interview with KnightNews.com, Chism explained how the potential 32 cent increase essentially covers the additional operations expenditures that will be needed for the Rec and Wellness Center expansion as well as a 2.5 percent cost of living adjustment that is being factored into all fee proposals. Aside from those two reasons, there were also some minor requests to increase salaries, Chism said.
“Keep in mind, however, that even though an increase is proposed it is far from finalized,” Chism added. “I can guarantee you that the five Student Government representatives on the fee committee will do their best to ensure the only increases to University fees are of the utmost necessity.”
Chism confirmed to KnightNews.com that there is also a pending request to UCF’s Transportation Fee of 35 cents, which stands at about a 4.4 percent increase from last year, but wasn’t able to say much more because the proposed projects aren’t finalized at this point.
The next speaker to address the senate announced that the print shop that will replace the temporary lounge in the Student Union is well underway, and that the computers have already been ordered.
The Election Commission’s representative said that there were 2,700 votes in last week’s runoff election, which is an improvement over past years.
After a ten minute recess, the senators started to address pending proposals.
The issue that sparked the most debate was the “cultural awards ceremony” proposed by the Black Female Development Circle, or BFDC, which started at UCF and now has chapters nationwide.
Multicultural Student Center funding would not cover the event, and they were in the process of dealing with the FAO committee.
Some senators opposed funding it mainly because the event was to be held in the Cypress Room, which costs money to rent, as opposed to the Student Union, where it would be free.
Another issue was that only the winners at the event would get awards, even though the event is open to the entire student body, on a first-come-first served basis.
There were also procedural concerns in the funding, because an organization is typically allowed one CRT allocation per fiscal year and one FAO allocation per semester.
The organization ultimately decided to aim for an allocation and the Senate voted to postpone the bill indefinitely.
Before the meeting ended, then-Sen. William Lusk gave a farewell speech. It marked his last time to address the student legislative body as a fellow senator, as he lost his elections violation appeal to the Judicial Council last Friday.
