Student Government discussed 10 bills at their meeting Sept. 19. Six bills passed, and five were unanimously approved. In addition, 14 new senators were sworn into office and guest speakers addressed campus problems to the body.
The first piece of legislation passed was the Constituent Outreach Technology Act which would allow college senators to reach out to their respective college and inform their constituents on events or inform on legislation being passed.
The Adopt-A-Spot-Modification Act, called for the increased flexibility of the Adopt-A-Spot program. The Adopt-A-Spot program is a program in which different organizations on campus can adopt an area on campus to clean and maintain throughout the year. The program was modified to exclude academic break periods, due to the lack of members in each respective organization able to properly maintain the spots.
Senator Preston Nieves, political science sophomore, said he ran on government transparency and was often questioned about what Student Government does.
The legislation he authored and later passed was called Legislative Transparency Act and would put proposed legislation on the student government site and would thereby give students a better idea of what their elected officials are doing.
The Affirmative Act for Bobcats living with Disabilities asked students to be mindful of differently abled Bobcats by not crowding ramps. This legislation was slated as being the first step in a long line of legislation to help Bobcats with disabilities.
The last piece of legislation, the Diversity Liaison Act, would appoint two individuals to go out to underrepresented groups on campus and act as a bridge between student government and those groups. These individuals would report to Student Government with their findings monthly. The final count was 24 to 19, in favor of the legislation.
The meeting also featured guest speakers. The first was Amy Stanfield, City Council Place 3 candidate, who talked about her campaign and platform. Don Cornyell, associate athletics director for External Operations, emphasized the importance of the upcoming Texas State and UTSA game.
University Ambassadors representatives discussed the upcoming online giving event, Step up for State. The online event starts on Sept. 20 at 8 a.m. and runs through Sept. 21 until 3:39 p.m. The donation drive has raised more than $44,000.
This will be the second annual Step up for State, which collects donations for student projects for 1,899 minutes, symbolic of the founding year of Texas State.
Steve Herrera and Nancy Nusbaum, Transportation Services director and associate vice president of Finance and Support Systems Planning, updated Student Government on part of the master plan regarding parking and transportation for the upcoming school years.
Herrera said the university is looking at other ways to help alleviate parking and transportation issues like ride sharing applications and monitoring current programs.