SGA waives Campus Leaders Mixers requirements for remainder of semester

The Student Government organization discussed the waiving of student organization leaders’ responsibility to attend Campus Leaders Mixers (CLM) for the remainder of the semester.

Student organization leaders are required by SGA to attend at least one CLM per semester in order to retain funding eligibility. SGA President Abuk Jiel said due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this rule has been waived for student organization leaders who have not yet attended a CLM for the Spring 2020 semester.

“As of right now it’s hard to get everyone on campus, so CLMs will be waived for the time being,” Jiel said. “We do plan to have them in the fall,”

The first bill of the Jiel-Larson administration was introduced at Tuesday’s meeting. The bill would establish CLMs in SGA’s governing documents and would make hosting CLMs the joint responsibility of SGA’s Director of Communications and the Student Affairs Committee.

“I had reservations about the fact that we’re requiring organizations to report to something that’s not officially established in (SGA’s governing documents), so I wrote this bill to make that happen,” bill sponsor senator Jacob Holmberg said.

The Internal Review committee decided to arrange a legislative response challenge instead of a mock session to test at-large candidates on their knowledge of legislation. The test consisted of two pieces of legislation which candidates were allowed to discuss their perspectives on in 200 words. SGA expects to swear in ten new at-large representatives next week.

Senator Armand Khan expressed concern about the 2020 census to the body, and said Vermillion would lose a substantial amount of federal funding if USD students weren’t counted in its census. SGA advisor John Howe echoed Khan’s concerns and implored senators to encourage off-campus students to participate in the census.

“(Greek life) is working directly with the census bureau in terms of a rostering process. We’re able to get those names to the census bureau, but we really need you to get your friends who live off-campus to complete that census document,” Howe said. “It’s really important to the City of Vermillion, and I encourage you to spread the word.”