It is crunch time for Northern Kentucky University’s Student Government Association as the semester inches nearer to a close. With one meeting remaining in the semester, SGA continues to move forward with three new senator appointments and two newly proposed resolutions.

At the Nov. 28 meeting, President Dustin Robinson and the senate voted to appoint three new senators, after another three recently resigned from the organization.

Freshman political science major Anthony Cameron, junior political science major Daniel Graham, and junior nursing major Kyle Haverbusch are the newest senators to join the SGA senate.

The three senators were approved after a slated vote (one voting motion for all three candidates), with one abstention and one opposition. Senator Joseph Fons opposed the motion to approve the appointments in a slated fashion and also to approve the appointments.

Before voting, each candidate was given the opportunity to introduce themselves and to take questions from the senate. Collectively, the candidates are concerned with improving campus, improving the connection between campus and commuters, and also being the voice for the students.

The new senators did not state any specific goals that they already have, but each plans to make contributions to the organization and the campus.
Sen. Cameron said that he is “100 percent sure that [he will] find something to improve here at NKU,” but doesn’t have any set goals yet; he just wants to be the advocate for students.

Continuing with new movements, SGA introduced two new resolutions, after unanimously passing resolutions to rename the Student Union in honor of President James Votruba and increase funding to the Office of Health, Counseling and Prevention Services.

Sen. Charles Rust introduced a resolution to improve meal plan options for commuter students. The resolution asks the university to add options that include plans that offer three and five meals per week, plus Flex dollars.

Currently, the most comprehensive commuter meal plan only offers 35 meals and $200 in Flex per semester, according to NKU’s dining website.
In addition to the commuter meal plan resolution, Sen. Holdan Markland presented the first reading of a resolution requesting that administrators increase funding to the student fee allocation board by $60,000.

The board currently allocates funds to the 211 student organizations on campus with $311,262 for the 2011-2012 academic year, a decrease of 13.7 percent in the past two academic years, according to Markland’s findings in the resolution.

Specifically, the resolution states that the student fee allocation board distributes funds to Northern Kentucky Leadership Institute, SGA, Greek Life, Activities Programming Board, independent organizations and the Legacy Fund.