Southwest Minnesota State University’s Student Senate held their end-of-semester town hall meeting in Charter Hall room 201 on April 14 to communicate across committees, share results of semester-long projects, address student body concerns, and review fiscal reports.
Semester highlights for the Southwest Minnesota State University Student Association include the campus blood drive, the Better World Books fundraiser, a day of lobbying at the Capitol, and the forging of a stronger link with the Faculty Association.
Student Association President Kyle Berndt noted a large change to the Association’s constitution that was put in place this year: the number of committees has been reduced from seven to five, which everyone agreed was more effective.
Berndt reviewed future goals for the Association, which include efforts to become more accessible to all students at SMSU, improve campus technology, extend lobbying efforts with support from the administration, and change the format for elections. Student elections currently leave a regrettably wide margin for unethical campaign tactics—a concern from past years that the Association is hoping to tackle by next semester.
Joe Guzman, Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee (referred to as the Cultural Diversity Committee until recently), reported positively on his committee’s semester activities. Their efforts have been focused on distributing scholarship information to students, attending a Power in Diversity conference in St. Cloud, and providing support for the “Equality at the Altar” discussion, for which Guzman will be serving as astudent ally panelist.
The committee also hopes to bring a guest speaker to campus for fall semester 2012. Guzman said “at the end of the day, you may not accomplish all the things you want to get done, but what I was able to get done…it has been worth it.”
Student Services Chair Tony Schwebach declared the suggestion boxes placed around campus to be a success. The most popular suggestions from students included extending the hours of the weight room, offering library hours on Saturdays, and improving campus technology. His favorite suggestion was from a student who thought it would be a good idea to get a troll underneath the Bellow Academic/Charter Hall bridge link.
Discussion became heated towards the end of the meeting when procedures for spontaneous requests were debated between senators.
The issue of whether the rubgy team was justified in receiving funds for jerseys and union dues, among other expenses, was a point of contention among Association members.
All SMSU students are encouraged to attend town hall meetings, if for no reason other than to serve as a reminder that the democratic process is alive and well on campus.
Student elections will be taking place from Monday, April 16 through Friday, April 20.