DeKALB — At Friday’s Student Government Association meeting Speaker Cole Hensley announced the dismissal of Anthony Heavens, the director of student life.
“That dismissal was purely Olivia’s (President Olivia Newman) decision, but obviously, I kind of gave her my opinions on that,” Hensley said. “What I really thought, why he should have been this semester removed, whether it was dismissal or impeachment, was just his lack of work that he could show to the senate when the hours he’s clocking.”
Newman said Heavens had been in his position since last year and had only submitted two staff reports and only appeared in front of the SGA senate twice.
Paid members of the SGA are required to write a staff report weekly.
“You get warnings, and after you get a certain amount of warnings, then it’s just time for removal,” Newman said.
Newman has decided to keep the position vacant. After a new president is elected, they will be able to begin building their cabinet and fill the director of student life position.
NEW “TOWN HALL” EVENTS
The senate passed a bill Friday that will require the SGA to host a “town hall” meeting at least twice a semester.
“This was born out of a lot of discussions I’ve had with students, they feel that SGA isn’t hearing from campus,” Deputy Speaker Chris English said.
The “town hall” events will allow for students to come to the speaker, president and senate with issues they are having, suggestions for improvements or compliments.
CHANGE IN REQUIREMENTS FOR RUNNING A SPECIAL ELECTION
A bill was approved that now allows for the SGA to run a special election if it fails to fill 33%of the available seats in the senate.
Prior to Friday’s meeting, in order to run a special election, the SGA would have needed to fail to meet 50%of the available seats in the senate.
“Even if we get more than 50% and we still have those seats, we can still vote more people in because 33% of the current number of seats is still 10 seats, we can get 10 more senators in hopefully,” Sergeant-At-Arms Niko Bereolos said.
ONEBUNNE MISSING FROM MEETING, AGAIN
Senator Amaka Onebunne has once again not been in attendance at an SGA senate meeting.
“I had a conversation with her last week,” Hensley said. “You know, it’s like, you’re gonna have to come, even though you might have a reason why you can’t come, and a good reason at that, it’s like, if you can’t perform the duties of senator at some point you gotta step down.”
ATTENDANCE CHANGES FOR COMMITTEE MEETINGS
A new bill was approved by the senate to ensure senators will receive an absence if a committee is unable to meet quorum.
“I’ve had meetings fail because multiple members have failed to meet or only one other member has attended,” Bereolos said. “And this has caused us not to be able to actually plan the events and has caused us to wait an entire month before we actually got to meet again.”
The bill passed 9-4-0.
POSSIBLE ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR TIER THREE AND FOUR STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
The SGA senate approved a bill to allow for Tier three and four student organizations that are not sport clubs or sport organizations but attend/engage in competitions to attempt to qualify for additional funding from the SGA.
RECOGNITION OF THREE NEW STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
The Real Estate Society, the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization and the Nigerian Students Association at Northern Illinois University all received recognition by the SGA senate.
SGA meetings are open to the public and held at 2 p.m. on Fridays, with locations posted in the senate’s agendas. SGA minutes and intent to speak forms are available on Huskie Hub.
