This SGA meeting took place on February 7th, 2024

Climate Check:

Sophomore Senator Odi Aneji brought up students’ concerns about the lack of variety of gluten-free options at Mabee Dining Hall. Junior Senator Harrison Tinker said he would bring it up at the next Student Dining Advisory Committee meeting.

Senior Senator Adam Garza re-raised the concern from last week about clothes being stolen from campus laundry rooms. Advisor Bernadette Buchanan asked if you had to use Tiger Cards to enter the laundry rooms, and the senators informed her that was not the case. Advisor Buchanan said that may be something they want to look into for the future.

Funding Proposals:

Vietnamese Student Association on behalf of the AAPI Council — Lunar New Year. Fully funded $4,708.79.

Since the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Council is not yet a registered student organization (RSO), the Vietnamese Student Association presented for the Lunar New Year event hosted by the council. Lunar New Year is an annual celebration held in Laurie Auditorium with various performances and food from different AAPI cultures. SGA has funded Lunar New Year every year, and this year was no different. Junior Senator Allison Waters motioned to fully fund, and Senator Aneji seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Trinity University Mock Trial — Regionals. Fully funded $2,148.59.

Trinity University Mock Trial requested funding to travel to their annual regional competition, including gas, hotel rooms and a food stipend for each person. Regionals is the only shot for the mock trial team to advance in their competition season. Senator Aneji said that Mock Trial had a good run at regionals last year and that it would be good to fund them again. Junior Senator Andrew Phillips motioned to fully fund, and Senator Garza seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Intermission — Officer Report:

President Danny Nguyen said that there would be no meeting next week for Valentine’s Day, but that there would be a “Free Food Wednesday” where SGA would pass out cupcakes and other Valentine’s treats. President Nguyen also informed the group that SGA would be moving rooms after years of SGA general meetings being held in the Waxahachie Room in the Coates Student Center. The planned location for future SGA meetings is Dicke Hall, which is like soooooo far from the newsroom.

Student Management Fund — GAME Forum. Partially funded $1,600.00.
The Student Management Fund is a capstone finance class where students are tasked with managing part of Trinity’s endowment portfolio, and they came to present for funding for 16 students to go to the Quinnipiac University GAME Forum event in New York City, which would provide the attending students with ample networking opportunities. They had received some funding from an alumna and the department already, but wanted to seek $6,400.00 in additional funding from SGA to cover travel and food expenses.

The senators were fairly divided on whether to fund the event or not, with Senator Tinker and senior Senator Nadesh Vaithianathan being vocally against funding it and Senator Aneji and sophomore Senator Bocar Diagana being in favor of funding it. Senator Phillips motioned to table the discussion until the end of the meeting.

When they returned to the discussion, sophomore Senator Omar Ratrut asked if they could just fund half, raising concerns about how costly the trip was as a whole. Several senators brought up the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) conference that SGA partially funded and turned out to be a success, but Senator Tinker argued that the SWE is an RSO and that SGA’s main duty is to RSOs. Vice President Caterina Mora interjected to remind Senator Tinker that SGA can fund anyone on campus.

Senator Tinker asked Vice President Mora to let him finish and continued to say that he knows they don’t just fund RSOs but that the amount requested was just too exorbitant. Senator Phillips asked anyone interested in partial funding to raise their hands and then asked anyone who didn’t want to fund the conference at all to raise their hands. Senators Tinker and Vaithianathan raised their hands for the latter, which Senator Phillips called a “big surprise.”

Senator Aneji motioned to partially fund for $3,600.00, which failed. Senator Ratrut motioned to partially fund for $4,000.00, which also failed. Finally, Senator Vaithianathan motioned to partially fund for $1,600.00, which passed, but not without a fair share of “nays.”

South Asian Student Association — Mock Mehndi. Fully funded $2,056.24.

The South Asian Student Association (SASA) presented to get funding for a mock South Asian wedding with games, performances, food, drinks and henna art. One of their line items was listed as “champagne,” which caused some confusion. That line item referred to Chartwells and TUPD fees for serving alcohol on campus, not the alcohol itself. As Senator Phillips clarified, SGA generally does not fund alcohol, but since this would not actually involve funding alcohol, when Senator Ratrut motioned to fully fund SASA, the motion passed.