This covers the SGA meeting held on March 20
Climate Check
Senior Senator Maria Duenas asked about the broken doors at City Vista, and Vice President Caterina Mora advised her to submit a work order. Junior Senator Joy Areola informed everyone that she was in contact with Dylan Pflum about the unused reserved parking spots in the City Vista parking garage.
Staff Chat: Mental Wellness Initiative
Marcy Youngdahl, director of integrated counseling and health services, and Marlaina Widmann, the coordinator of student wellness, came to SGA alongside the staff of Peer Health Educators (PHE) to update SGA on the Mental Wellness Initiative. They began with a discussion of the project goals: improving accessibility to reach underserved students, increasing mental health support services and developing routes for rapid feedback. They have implemented measures like MANUAL and the hiring of several new PHEs and have many more programs in the works.
Wellness Services has been carefully measuring the impact of its new offerings by gauging participation in and satisfaction with events, tracking referrals to Counseling and Health Services, sending out longitudinal health surveys and more. With some programs like dog therapy, TigerConnect and the LGBTQIA+ focus group yet to be fully implemented and a coordinator of wellness programming yet to be hired, the Mental Wellness Initiative has spent $16,920 of its $98,786 budget.
Vice President Mora asked if they had thought about sharing this same update with the student body, since people had asked her about the status of the initiative. This was something that Youngdahl and Widmann were interested in, but they weren’t entirely sure what the best way of getting the information to students was — video, flier or presentation.
Emergency Funding Request
TigerThon: 1902 Night — Fully funded $5,600.18
TigerThon’s mission is to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio, so they are planning a fundraiser at 1902 on April 11 alongside Phi Sigma Chi. All profits from ticket sales will go directly to the hospital, and they estimate about 800 people will attend. Their request covered the club’s fees not associated with alcohol. Sophomore Senator Omar Ratrut motioned to fully fund their request, and the motion passed.
USO Funding 101
Advisor Jamie Thompson and Vice President Mora presented guides to the university-sponsored organization (USO) funding sessions that will be coming up shortly. Representatives from USOs, Campus Publications and Recreational Sports will all present to SGA for their yearly budgets, which is where a large chunk of the Student Activity Fund (SAF) goes. Both presenters emphasized that most of these organizations will only come to SGA this one time for funding, and that reading their proposals thoroughly and remaining attentive throughout the presentations is of the utmost importance.
Constitutional Review
Junior Senator Andrew Phillips led the senators in voting on which constitutional updates would appear on the upcoming SGA ballot. The senators voted to table two proposed changes until next semester’s ballot: (a) restrictions against students being allowed to be the president of a USO and a registered student organization simultaneously, and (b) being allowed to run for SGA as a resident assistant. As President Danny Nguyen pointed out, the university is too far into the club elections process and SGA voting process, and thus adding this to the ballot this semester would only cause confusion.
Several constitution updates were approved by the senate to be put on the ballot: the addition that all of SGA’s allocations shall adhere to the Student Organization Handbook, the changing of percentages of the SAF allocated to SGA for their operation and distribution, the striking of a sentence specifying that travel funds for second semester may be requested during the first semester and the overhaul of the appropriations section.
Final Updates
Senator Phillips, sophomore Senator Bocar Diagana and Senator Areola announced their intentions to run for SGA president, and junior Senator Allison Waters announced her intention to run for Vice President. DEI Chair Trinity Hatchett updated everyone on a meeting she had with Trinity Dining about the upcoming Block Party — Trinity Dining will cover paletas, mocktails and fruit cups.
