Monday night’s Student Association meeting featured an abundance of activity, including a vote on an amendment of its Election Code, the approval of an SA donation and two special programming requests.

After handing out a copy of the revised code, Parliamentarian Ryan Doyle discussed the changes with the assembly. One of the major changes included the creation of its first official Campaign Manager.

The position would help identify an individual who would coordinate things with the Board of Elections, a regulation stipulating that all campaigning must cease during the voting period and a shift of responsibility from the Judicial Review Board to the Board of Elections in regards to possible violations of the Election Code, Doyle said.

‘It empowers the BEM and involves them in the process more,’ Doyle said. ‘What we need to do is give the power to the people who need to make these decisions.’

The code was also revised to help readers find information more easily and to outline the penalty for breaking a part of the code right after the penalty itself, instead of listing the penalties at the end, as it did before.

Many questions were raised, including why campaigning during the voting period is not allowed. One representative said he did not see how it would hurt to allow candidates to campaign until the end. The response was that since voting occurs online, everywhere on campus becomes a ‘polling location,’ and campaigning in polling locations is not allowed.

After a pro and con debate, the Election Code Amendment was unanimously approved.

Director of Civic Engagement Adam Jones brought to the assembly a request to approve an SA donation. Jones said an e-mail was sent by Roy Baker, director of fraternity and sorority affairs, to all student organizations. The e-mail asked for donations to go to a group of 65 under-privileged elementary and middle school students who wish to attend a Pop Warner Cheerleading Competition in Niagara Falls in November. The assembly voted and approved the designation of $600.

Freshman Paul Alberry expressed his desire to be elected to fill the final Arts and Sciences representative spot. He said he wanted to join the Civic Engagement Committee and that he felt it is important for all students to know about SA. A unanimous vote approved Alberry as a new SA representative.

Two special programming requests were also brought up. The first was a request from CitrusTV for $4,800 to fund a card reader door entry system to help prevent theft. CitrusTV’s Watson Studio was broken into in July, resulting in the loss of its plasma television. The assembly voted to approve this funding.

The second request came from University Union Cinemas, which asked for $2,335 to show ‘Talladega Nights’ as a drive-in movie in the Skytop parking lot. The assembly voted to not fill its monetary request because not enough students went to the last drive-in movie and UU Cinemas is already showing 14 movies this semester.

Chair of University Affairs Joy LaChelle Ingraham spoke about opening up certain buildings, such as the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, to all students for late-night studying.

She also mentioned a cost and benefit analysis that University Affairs will be conducting on the printers around campus. It hopes to present a plan to replace the current printers with those that print double-sided.

To wrap up the meeting, Chief of Staff Ryan Kelly, who is an SA presidential candidate, brought to the Assembly’s attention that there is currently no Japanese major or minor.

Kelly said he became aware of this after a student contacted him and said it is a large issue that needs to be solved.

Not having a major might deter students who want to pursue Japanese studies from doing so, or even studying abroad in Tokyo, Kelly said. He said he would look into this issue.

SA’s next meeting will take place Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium.

Published on October 24, 2006 at 12:00 pm