Ball State’s Student Government Association (SGA) met Oct. 9 and welcomed Director Courtney Jarrett from the Office of Disability Services. Jarrett talked about how students can apply for disability accommodations and reapply every semester. 

In the 2023-24 school year, 2,470 students verified and utilized disability accommodations, according to Jarrett’s presentation.

For more information on how to request accommodations, students can read more online on the Office of Disability Services website.

SGA Chief of Staff Chelsea Murdock asked Jarrett what students should do if their accommodations aren’t working. Jarrett said students can email workcontrol@bsu.edu.

Following Jarrett’s presentation, she led a Q&A, and SGA heard from Student Center Director Michael McKean. He talked about what the L.A. Pittenger Student Center has to offer. 

McKean said student organizations can rent out rooms for meetings. To do so, students can fill out the form on their website. He said there are lounges available on every floor for students to use. 

Following the guest speakers, SGA brought in a new senate applicant for the collegiate seat, Kelvin Gyamfi. Gyamfi is a student studying to get his master’s degree in organizational and professional communications at Ball State. 

Gyamfi started his presentation by telling the senate about himself. 

He shared that he’s from Ghana in West Africa and said that when he was little, he “thought America was in the sky.”

Gyamfi wants to be part of SGA  “[to] make sure [students] have a safe transportation system to and from campus.”

He also talked about TransLoc, the app students used to have access to in order to track campus bus routes. This is important to him because, as someone from Ghana, he isn’t used to Muncie’s “winter[s] and different weather conditions.”

Another one of his goals is to increase the amount of toiletries students can take from Cardinal Kitchen. At this time, Gyamfi said students can take a maximum of three items. He said he wants to increase this number to five items per student, as he is concerned that if students are just limited to three items, they may have to limit themselves to what they can pick.

At the end of his presentation, Gyamfi was voted into the senate 32-1 and with zero abstentions.

SGA also had two budget requests from the Student Services Committee and the Organizational Caucus.

Student Services Committee Chair Caroline Emerick requested $90.93 for their tabling event on Oct. 23 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Scramble Light. This event is being hosted right before Halloween weekend to educate students on how to remain safe during the weekend.

The money they requested would go to bubbles for $16.99, Halloween stickers and Halloween glow stickers each for $9.99, party favors such as pop-its and slinkies for $29.99, and treat bags for $23.97.

This was approved 32-1 with one abstention.

The second request was from Organizational Caucus Sen. Philena Evett. Evett requested $55.85.

The caucus will be hosting a tabling event on Nov.11 from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The event will be about raising mental health awareness, as caucus members will be passing out self-care goodie bags.

The money they requested would fund mental health awareness foam stars for $22.99, 50 clear goodie bags for $9.99, a bag of Hershey’s candy for $15.99 and a pack of 100 mental health stickers for $6.88.

The budget was approved 32-0 with two abstentions.

During executive reports, President Noah Poole could not attend. Vice President Brenna Large spoke on his behalf about the special bus route they had running during Ball State’s Family Weekend. 

“We hope it was a service to students,” she said.

Poole and Large had the opportunity to talk with Ball State Center for Information Technology about adding “student-requested features” to the MyBallState app.

Large also said a watch party is scheduled for the upcoming presidential election, and SGA is working on getting prizes for students who attend.

With no new or unfinished business, the senate meeting was adjourned. The next meeting open to the public is 3:15 p.m. Oct. 16 at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center. 

Contact Shelby Anderson via email at sanderson9@bsu.edu.

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