For the second consecutive week, the Student Government Association’s weekly meeting was dominated by discussion of the University of Massachusetts Police Department’s confidential informant program.
During Monday’s meeting, the SGA also passed an amendment to modify the responsibilities and change the title of the Bike Share Coordinator. Progress was made on the expansion of the Registered Student Organization council system, future suggestions for tailgating at UMass home football games were summarized and the Ways and Means committee provided a brief update on the issue of raising the student activities fee. A new Senator from Southwest, Devin Casey, was sworn in to fill a vacant seat, as well.
The amendment affecting the Bike Share Coordinator was sponsored by SGA President Vinayak Rao. It changed the title of the Bike Share Coordinator to Office Coordinator, adding new office responsibilities to the role.
“The responsibilities of the Office Coordinator will include managing the Bike Share program,” Rao said. “One of the biggest reasons we need this is so we have a point person who will manage the SGA phone.”
Amendment 2014 F2 passed unanimously.
Ways and Means Chairman Adam Ladd said at last week’s meeting that the RSO council system was likely to be expanded beyond just club sports. This week, Ladd and Secretary of the Registry Tara Chudy, who is in charge of registering RSOs, gave a presentation on the system.
“We’re grouping all the RSOs into different councils. This affects every RSO and how they function,” Chudy said. “By next semester, the whole council system will be implemented. Then we’ll see if anything needs to be changed or worked around.”
According to Chudy, the main focus of restructuring the RSO system is to “get (RSOs) to get together, work together and do their budgets together.”
Chairman Ladd also clarified last week’s report on raising the student activities fee. Ladd cited new statistics that showed UMass’ fee to be lower than fees at other universities similar to UMass, despite the University funding larger extracurricular programs.
During the meeting, SGA Attorney General Ritika Kumar initiated discussion about the University’s confidential informant program in her report, and the floor was later opened up for debate.
Senator Daniel Burkhardt raised concerns that umass-sga.com was not being well-maintained. He cited several bylaws that mandated the listing of senators and other information online, which, according to Burkhardt, is currently incomplete. The issue is being looked into.
Secretary for Veteran’s Services Nathaniel Dunnican announced that UMass is hiring a new Veteran’s Services Manager and that the department also has plans to expand veteran recognition at sporting events.
After the first quarter of Minutemen football games, a veteran will now be recognized in honor of his or her service. The program is set to begin as soon as the SGA can secure a deal with the football team and it will eventually expand to other sporting events.
William Keve can be reached at [email protected].
