Bear Forum

About 15 students attended tonight’s Bear Forum with SGA and they raised a variety of concerns, including:

• Internet speed and bandwidth
• Requests for more Bear Card tappers outside of Residence Halls
• Potential of a feature in the Mercer Mobile App that would allow you to see which study rooms are available
• Possibility of expanding some houses on Greek Row in the future to accommodate larger incoming classes
• The speed and efficiency of maintenance requests being filled
• Urgent care possibilities for students
• Requests for water bottle refill stations in more places
• Extended Physician hours for the Health Center
• Possibility of securing campus with gates at night
• Question of how small organizations can hope to compete for event dates when bigger organizations schedule overlapping times
• Could we have a library printing allowances worked into our student fees ahead of time
• Can there be more dining options open with longer hours on the weekends

These questions were all directed to the appropriate parties. Various committee chairs agreed to take actions on items like organization scheduling and food service hours, and the senate promised to follow up with each student that filed a comment.

SGA President Harrison said that he hopes to have a Bear Forum every month, on the last Monday of each month.

Katie Atkinson

It’s Tailgate Time

The October 3 Sophomore Tailgate is set to be a busy day. United Way will have a tent set up to raise money and awareness for their #bears4books initiative, the student Sustainability Committee will be actively working to help tailgaters recycle their trash throughout the day, cultural organizations will have new tents on Cruz Plaza, and Mercer Maniacs are hoping to have a record setting game attendance.

Bear Grants

The annual Bear Grants meeting is next Monday, October 5. Senators are receiving all of the applications this week, and they will be going through to comment on line items before the meeting in hopes of streamlining the process.

Funding for Food

SGA voted tonight against a proposed amendment that would mean student organizations could apply for special funding from SGA for food-related expenses. The amendment was designed to help organizations that specifically support cultural awareness through the food. Senator Cullens, the author of the legislation,  said that he had organizations like Mercer Asia in mind when putting the amendment together.

The proposed amendment read:

In special cases, student organizations may request appropriations for food-related expenses, if and only if:

1. The event specifically supports cultural awareness using food;
2. The event is open to the entire student body.
3. The requested funds support no more than 15% of food expenses for the event.
4. The event is not a part of a fundraiser to help further support a student organization.

Food will not be authorized for meetings in which only members of the organization are present.

The amendment did not pass, and the motion to reconsider the amendment did not pass, so the legislation as it reads above is now dead. However, Senator Cullens can bring another version to the floor if he so chooses. Members of the senate body expressed an interest in seeing this happen.