The following covers the meeting on Jan. 29.
CLASS OF 2028 SENATOR VACANCY
SGA elected a first-year senator to fill a vacancy. Kate Gregory, William Regan, Eva Smith, Andrew Cersonek, Gabe Irvine, Sara Diaz, Autumn Hunter, Mac Steele, Andrew Butcher, Isabel Obando and Kenia Espinoza Garcia ran for the empty seat, presenting speeches before current SGA senators.
The senators decided on Eva Smith for the position. She grew up in Paraguay and finished school in St. Louis, Mo. In high school, she was in Youth and Government and has lobbied politicians in D.C. She aims to increase the transparency of SGA, improve sanitation in campus restrooms and better the quality of food on campus.
SAF BUDGET FOR SPRING 2025
SGA reviewed its SAF allocated budget for the fall 2024 semester. It spent a total of $117,752 in fall 2024. SGA will be receiving $343,695.49 from Trinity for use this semester. Vice President Allison Waters cautioned against going over this amount when approving spending requests this semester. She also said that organizations typically host their bigger, more expensive events in the spring semester.
FUNDING PROPOSALS
The Black Student Union requested $2,558 for the 3rd annual Black Essence Festival. The funding requests were for a mechanical bull, an electronic basketball arcade game, caricature artists and a social station for the photo booth. SGA unanimously agreed to fund the request fully.
The Trinity Review requested $3,782 for printing purposes and to buy food for their release party. First-year Senator Nellie Clark requested lowering the budget for the pizza, and SGA lowered the number of prints they would pay for from the proposed 200 to 175. SGA unanimously agreed to fund $3,189.25 partially.
Trinity’s chapter of the American Marketing Association requested $4,159.66 to send six students to the AMA International Collegiate Conference in New Orleans. The Michael Neidorff School of Business had already fully funded the trip, and AMA was asking SGA to reimburse the school. Sophomore Senator Madelyn Stovall expressed concern about setting a precedent of reimbursing departments after they had already paid the money. Vice President Waters said that she would prefer the business school come to SGA directly to ask for reimbursement instead of the AMA. The funding request was denied in full, with 16 Senators against and one abstaining.
The Student Managed Fund requested $20,100 for a class trip of 24 students to the Quinnipiac GAME Forum in New York City. Junior Senator Alexander Brown said that he didn’t understand why the SMF had come to SGA when previous trips had been funded by donors, alumni and the finance department. Sixteen senators voted to deny the funding request in full, with one senator dissenting. SGA recommended that the SMF find other resources before approaching SGA for funding, but once they had, they could reapply for SGA funding.
CLIMATE CHECK
Senator Stovall brought up concerns about the tennis courts not being illuminated at night as the lights are currently nonfunctional. Senator Stovall said she would investigate the issue, but Senior Senator Pierce Jackson said the issue was already being addressed, stating that a donor is providing an electronic scoreboard to livestream games on the tennis courts.
*Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the SGA was reviewing its own budget; they were reviewing their SAF allocation. The previous version also incorrectly reported that the spring SAF allocation was $121,401, it is actually $343,695.49, and that going over this allocation would draw from the Fall 2025 SAF budget when it would not.