Ball State SGA introduces an amendment to increase On-Campus representation

Ball State’s Student Government Association voted on two amendments and introduced four new bills in its hybrid meeting Feb. 2.

The meeting opened with the Assistant Director of Student Life Bridget Webster, a special guest who talked about the Cardinal Leadership and Service Seminar (CLASS) program. CLASS is a program that allows freshmen to move into residence halls earlier than scheduled before the fall semester begins. Webster was recruiting SGA members to work the program for this upcoming summer before semester begins.

Eric Willams applied to be a senator for the Off-Campus Caucus. Williams is a 31-year-old father and sport administration and finance major. In 2009, he received a football scholarship from Ball State, and he played on the university football team for two and a half years.

Williams took a break from Ball State, and then returned when he figured out his preferred line of work.

“I had to get into the workforce and kind of fill out what life had planned for me and really learn what I liked outside of football and that’s what led me back here,” Williams said.

Williams was voted in 28-0.

Two budget requests were introduced to SGA: one from the Safety Committee Caucus and the other from the At-Large Caucus.

Senator Casey Rockel requested $144.07 for the Safety Committee’s “Love Safety” event on Feb. 22. The event is planned to be socially distanced in Kinghorn Hall.

The budget request was passed by the majority with a verbal vote.

Senator Brenna Large represented the At-Large Caucus to request $391.44 for its sex education brunch, “Bacon and S-eggs.”

The request passed by the majority with a verbal vote.

SGA voted on two amendments.

One proposed to redefine the role of the Credentials Board and what the board examined when reviewing student applications. The amendment proposed the chair of the board would be a non-voting member.

The amendment also proposed applications require a majority approval from the Credentials Board rather than current unanimous consent.

“A majority vote in [the] Credentials Board is way more beneficial than everyone voting unanimously,” Senator Ozzie Kazarian said.

The amendment passed 28-0 with one abstention.

The second amendment proposed to lift limitations that prevented senators from serving on more than two independent committees. Instead, senators will only be prohibited from serving on all four existing independent committees.

The amendment passed 28-0 with one abstention.

Four new amendments were introduced.

The first amendment proposes to adjust representations of the On-Campus Caucus by allowing each university residence hall to have one SGA representative, instead of the current housing establishment having one representative.

The On-Campus Caucus is the only caucus whose members are not voted in by the senate, they are instead voted in by their residence hall councils.

“A housing establishment is just the foundation,” Senator Casey Rockel, the author of the amendment, said.

Some housing establishments have multiple halls, hall directors and Living-Learning Communities (LLC) within them, such as Noyer Complex, Woodworth Complex, Dehority Complex and Studebaker East Complex.

“This amendment, if passed, would open four more seats on the On-Campus Caucus. Right now, the caucus is only eligible for 12 seats total with six of them filled now,” Rockel said.

The second amendment proposed senate resolutions require 150 valid and unique signatures from the Ball State student body in an effort to provide a better medium for them to communicate their needs to the university.

The third amendment proposed to update the language surrounding the Residence Hall Association (RHA) representative to reflect them as a voting member of SGA.

The RHA representative was given voting rights on Oct. 20, 2021, and it passed 34-0 with two abstentions.

The fourth amendment proposed to reduce the number of votes required to present a bill of impeachment from one third to one fourth of the voting members of the student senate. The amendment proposes that an impeachment petition needs one-fourth of voting senators’ signatures to call for an investigation.

All four amendments introduced will be voted on at the next meeting, Feb. 9.

Contact Hannah Amos with comments at hannah.amos@bsu.edu or on Twitter @Hannah_Amos_394. Contact Richard Kann with comments at richard.kann@bsu.edu or on Twitter @RichardKann.