Student Government Association members are focused on tying up loose ends a month before new officers take office.
SGA elections for the next academic year will take place March 29 and March 30. Students can vote for the candidates at orgsync.com.
Standing resolutions
Student Senate passed two resolutions this semester: the Sodexo resolution to change certain rules pertaining to food services, and the GPA resolution to potentially remove the plus/minus grading system.
“We really have just over a month left with this current administration,” SGA President Chance Johnson said.
So our focus right now is on tying up our policy agenda items. Obviously the biggest one is food services, which is why we’re trying to facilitate things and move quickly because we want to make sure that’s done for the new officers coming to place.
SGA’s food services resolution requests certain changes in the way food service operates and interacts with students. Some of the changes include new meal plans, prices listed in Alvin’s and getting to see the university’s contract with Sodexo.
Johnson said SGA received a preliminary response to their resolution, but they will continue negotiations. He said the prices in Alvin’s for pre-packaged foods will be posted by April 1.
“The university, to my knowledge, is putting together at least one more option to the basic meal plans that we have right now,” he said. “In terms of some of the other proposals, it was a mix of positive and negative. We’ll have a little bit clearer idea of what we actually have a prospect of maybe getting, but for right now I’m happy with the fact that we’ve gotten at least some movement on two of our bigger policy proposals.”
Nic Rhodes, SGA vice president, said Sodexo officials denied SGA’s request to view Sodexo’s contract with the university.
“We’re directly affected by their charging and their prices and things, so I think we should definitely be apprised of any contractual information,” he said. “I think us having that information would help us make better decisions in the long run.”
Rhodes heads the resolution dealing with the GPA plus/minus system.
He said he’s waiting on the Faculty Senate to approve a survey he created to gauge faculty and students’ thoughts on the plus/minus system. Once the survey is approved, Rhodes will send it to faculty and students.
“I haven’t actually had that many plus or minuses in any of my grades,” said Danielle Frost, English junior. “Personally, I think those are silly either way. I’d much rather just have a number over a letter grade because those are already kind of vague.”
Rhodes said Jonathan Willner, chairman of economics and finance, is analyzing grades at non-plus/minus schools to see how OCU’s grades would compare if it was a non-plus/minus school.
“He’ll give us a direct comparison of what essentially that would do for our grades,” Rhodes said. “If we’re competing with schools that have on average higher GPAs because of a systemic issue, then that’s something that we need to look at.”
SGA is trying to finalize both resolutions while focusing on upcoming elections.
“Our second focus is elections and trying to recruit potential high officers, but also senators and general members of the organization,” Johnson said.
Our focus in the last four or five weeks are really on tying up loose ends and getting ready to make the transition.
Conflicting schedules
As SGA vice president, Rhodes also is the president of Student Senate, which has missed three consecutive meetings this semester.
“It’s one of the challenges we face with such a heavily involved student body,” Johnson said. “The people in SGA tend to be people who are involved in a lot of things, so sometimes you run into difficulties of people having prior obligations they can’t get out of.”
Rhodes said the first meeting didn’t happen because there was no legislation on the floor.
“When that’s the case, we just don’t feel that it’s necessary to require the senators to come and have some sort of arbitrary meeting when there’s nothing for them to vote on or consider, because we want to be respectful of their time,” Johnson said.
Rhodes said the second meeting didn’t meet quorum, which is half the senators. That number is 13, according to the SGA Constitution. He said the third meeting was canceled because of a time conflict with Spring Sing.
Rhodes said:
Scheduling has been very difficult, especially at this time in the semester. On the bright side, there really has been no adverse effect from these meetings not being held.
According to the Student Senate Standing Rules, the senate president can choose to change the time of the meeting.
Rhodes set up a NeedtoMeet, which helps people schedule meetings, and was told the best time to meet was 8 p.m. Wednesdays so he changed the meetings to that day earlier in the year.
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