Student Senate failed to meet quorum at two consecutive meetings last semester.
Quorum for Senate is the attendance of half the number of senators plus one. Senate is currently made up of 18 senators elected by the student body. If quorum is not reached at a meeting, Senate cannot conduct official business.
“The last Senate meeting of the year last semester didn’t meet quorum,” said Jordan Tarter, English senior and SGA president. “So, Vice President Gipson-Black called an emergency session for the following week. He reached out to senators to make sure they’d be there and gave them notice, and we still failed to meet quorum.”
The agenda for the original meeting was to hear two bills–one from the Catholic Student Association and one from Stars on Earth–student allotment forms and a reserve budget request to help fund cameras in Cokesbury. Tarter said the money for the cameras had been allocated over the summer, but because of delays from housing, it was not used and was put back into the reserve fund, and a new request had to be submitted.
“I’d been working on this through last summer,” Tarter said. “It’s something students really want and senators support. When I presented the original request, they decided to give it more money. I believe it would have passed if more people had been there.”
Senate meetings are scheduled at the beginning of the semester and are every other week of the semester. The first meeting that failed to meet quorum had been on the schedule since August. If a senator is going to miss a senate meeting, they are expected to send an excuse to Austin Gipson-Black, religion/political science senior and SGA vice president. If a senator misses three meetings without sending an excuse, they are removed from office. Gipson-Black said no senators met that last semester.
“I was disappointed in senators who didn’t show up, especially those who didn’t send in excuses,” Gipson-Black said. “What’s asked of a senator isn’t much. It’s a one-hour meeting every two weeks. Not doing their job is a disservice to the students.”
Since quorum was not met at either meeting, Senate could not address the agenda. One reason Gipson-Black called the emergency meeting was to address the bill from the Catholic Student Association as their organization needed funding for an event taking place over the break. Both Tarter and Gipson-Black said they do not believe this will be an issue in the future.
“When you sign on to be a student leader, you commit to that,” Gipson-Black said. “We have to hold ourselves accountable. I would ask the senators to think deeply and reflect sincerely over what their position means to them.”
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