Senators continue to discuss incentive possibilities

Student Senate President Katrina Hurley proposed having jackets funded through Senate for senators at Monday’s meeting.

“It would be good for the next executive senators to not have to go out there and drag people into Senate,” Hurley said. “The amount of time and energy spent in here, as well as talking to constituents, online voting, all the emails, and all the numerous committees that everyone is on, I think that it’s definitely, like, good to have some sort of ‘Hey, you did a good job,’ because sometimes we are not appreciated on campus at all.”

These jackets would be paid for through student fees. Sen. Josh Mayer said he sees the jackets being paid for through student fees as an ethical issue.

Student Adviser Susan Schaeffer suggested having senators pay for part of it and student fees to pay for the rest of it. Hurley mentioned that other clubs have sweatshirt, sweatpants, or T-shirts paid for through student fees when they ask the Activity Fee Board to approve budgets for their clubs.

Student Trustee Coy Clark said that he still thinks senators deserve a scholarship. He said scholarships, or any kind of incentive, will create more competitions and thus more qualified students would apply to join Senate. Clark said the students should trust the senators with the student fees.

“My thing on the scholarships is essentially the students investing in their government,” Clark said. “If we can’t trust our senators not to be blowing out these huge paychecks they shouldn’t be senators in the first place, and if that’s an issue we’re facing then no, I don’t think we need the scholarships. But if the students trust the people we have in these positions to get the scholarships, the incentives in the first place then they should be able to trust the people in these positions to not just start rolling out all of their cash.”

Clark also suggested looking at possibly getting waivers from the administration instead of scholarships if scholarships are not the solution.

Justine Stone, 20, junior of Maywood, said that Senate needs to make sure that students are asked and that they actually know what Senate is doing before they vote on anything like this. She also mentioned that if students are joining Senate just for the incentives, they aren’t coming with the best interest in mind.

Senators agreed that there would need to be an outside source to look at the decision and provide Senate with a check.

Student Senate Vice President of Finance Curtis Stevens suggested keeping the incentive until the end of the semester and making them available for only a certain number of senators who excelled that semester instead of making them available for everyone.

Sen. Tileen Sullivan suggested having cords at graduation as an incentive for senators. Hurley said they are working on getting cords already and that’s more of an honor than an incentive.

CAB Chair Molly O’Connell said that if senators are going to get incentives they need to make sure they are truly earning them.

Hurley is working with Faculty Senate on having a food option from Dining Services open during school breaks. It is too late to get Dining Services to provide food for the midterm break Monday and Tuesday, but Hurley is working with the food pantries and churches in town to provide meals. There will be continual work after mid-term break to have a food option on campus for the fall break in November.

Hurley and Faculty Senate are also working to improve the student surveys that evaluate professors each semester.

Associate Athletic Director Chris Green said the school is working toward getting a fan bus to take about 40-50 students to the football game at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, Oct. 22. The bus would leave about 9 a.m. that day. Students would get a ride to and from the game, lunch, and the entry to the game taken care of. Green asked for an allocation of $1,000 from Senate to help cover costs. That allocation will be discussed at the open forum at 5 p.m. Thursday. There will be an online vote for senators for the allocation Monday since there is no Senate meeting Monday.

Sen. Jessica Hartman said her constituents are still wondering about the library being open on Saturdays so she said she will draft a formal petition to collect signatures. The petition sent around last year was not accepted because it was just a list of signatures without an explanation of what students were signing for at the top of the pages.

The campus improvement committee has 11 agenda items so far this semester and only has four members. The committee chair Carly Slaght asked about creating subcommittees.

Stevens reported $90,818.10 in unallocated funds and they have $491.22 in the off-campus account.

Four senators will be traveling with Hurley to Peru State College Oct. 27-28—Ashley Goad, Slaght, Johnathan Sayaloune, and Denae Schilling.

The fall career fair will be Oct. 26, Senate Adviser Deena Kennell said.