The newly appointed Student Government Association senate had their first full meeting Tuesday. New senators were sworn in and committee were started.
The new senators sworn in from the at-large election included Phil Adam, Braden Bury, Hannah Chadwell, Ryan Conover, Tallon Everson, Daxton Keagan, Emily Olson, Matthew Reu, Caleb Swanson and Caleb Weiland.
Weiland was elected as the Senate President Pro Tempore. The Dean of Students, Kimberly Grieve, congratulated the new senate.
“I just want to say I’m so excited to be working with this new administration,” Grieve said.
New committees were formed; the Internal Review Committee includes Swanson and Keagan, the Finance Committee includes Olson, Everson and Bury, the State and Local Committee includes Reu, Phil Adam and Weiland and the Student Affairs Committee includes Chadwell and Conover.
The Student Affairs Committee appointed Everson and Bury and the Budget Committee appointed Kolberg, Everson, Weiland, Garrett Adam, Olson and Siem.
“The President’s Council for Diversity and Inclusiveness discussed South Dakota House Bill 1217,” SGA President Alexandra Fiener said in the president’s report. “Athletes would only be allowed to play in sports in the division in which is their biological gender.”
As of now, H.B. 1217 will not affect USD athletics, but would impact South Dakota high school athletes.
“Governor Noem has amended it so that it will no longer include college athletics because of economic concerns. There is a clause in the NCAA bylaws saying if you pass this type of bill, you will not be allowed to hold any championships, or big games within your state. So as of right now, she’s not including the college sports in it,” Fiener said.
Addison Miller, Director of Communications, expanded on goals and plans for the upcoming term. The outreach plan includes growing SGA’s Twitter and Instagram presence. Miller said he plans to revitalize social media, internal communication and possibly create an SGA website independent from the USD website.
The Director of Finance, Logan Johnson, said this upcoming budget will be carried out with a strategic plan while fiscally supporting USD organizations.
“I would caution the Senate on over allocating. We have a very fine line to walk when it comes to enabling student organizations to operate how they’d like to… we’d love to see them flourish on the heels of COVID and not be shackled by budget constraints,” Johnson said.
