The University of Massachusetts Amherst Student Government Association (SGA) held its second meeting of the year on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 6:30 p.m. in the Student Union Cape Cod Lounge. The SGA looked to the future and appointed new members, discussed the school calendar for 2027-2032, and proposed amendments to their bylaws

Opening the meeting, the Committee of the Whole was called into session. Transform Forward consultants Lindsey Koch and Adam Cebulski, who attended the meeting over Zoom, discussed their plans to implement a structure that would work to provide the necessary funding to these Registered Student Organizations (RSOs).

Koch emphasized the creation of working groups, specifically “bylaws and governance working groups, a fiscal sustainability and budget reform working group, as well as an RSO classification group,” which would work to implement these recommendations and achieve the long-term goals set by the SGA.

Following this call, Cass Melo, Chair of the Academic Oversight Committee, and Jacob Nevins, Secretary of University Policy, alongside University Registrar Patrick Sullivan, introduced a new calendar proposal. The proposal detailed the approved schedule for the 2026-27 school year, which is unchangeable.

Melo and Sullivan then went into detail about the potential calendars for the 2027-2032 school years, with the hope of gathering feedback, as those plans are still alterable.

For multiple academic years during this period, the end of the fall semester and the beginning of the winter semester coincide, which would not be the case if classes were held on Election Day.

Additionally, residence assistants are required to stay on campus until 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve to conduct room checks, which was not discussed until after next year’s calendar came out. Having classes on election day would therefore allow Residence Assistants to leave campus one day earlier.

The 2026-2027 year will start on Sept.8, which is later than usual, due to Labor Day falling on the calendar the latest it can be. “There’s no way to get 65 class days and five days of finals, without running up against Christmas Eve,” Sullivan said.

With next year’s calendar having the fall and winter semesters overlapping, Sullivan argued that having classes on election day would benefit students, allowing them to have an extra day to determine if they need to take a winter class.

For many years, UMass had a two-week add-drop period, instead of the current one-week period. Sullivan mentioned that there was a campus study conducted comparing students who registered in the first week of add-drop and those who registered in the second week.

Sullivan said that the results of the study showed “the failure rates were higher for the group.”

A general consensus among the senators was that there should be no classes during the midterm and presidential elections. For non-general election years, there seemed to be more division.

Nevins commented on the need for having proper infrastructure for students who are voting, regardless of whether they have a class that day or not.

“[It’s so] important for us to give this feedback,” Nevins said. “These decisions can affect whether or not people can vote in person.”

Nevins also stressed the significance of educating students on campus about how they can register to vote in Amherst or how they can get mail-in-ballots from their home states.

“At the end of the day, we have the power here to influence the schedules to make sure that they work for the faculty, students, [and] work for RAs,” Melo said.

During special orders, motions to seat Hamna Mustafa, a junior accounting and economics major, as treasurer, Brian Beltrami, a junior legal studies and political science major, as deputy attorney general and Ella Bahmann, junior natural resources economics major, as undersecretary of sustainability passed.

Additionally, the motion to approve Breyanne Cassimore, Catherine Hardiman, Lara Gutierrez, Naomi Bloom, Sara Johnson, Valentina Ramirez, and Valeria Centinaro as conduct advisors passed.

A motion to move the appointment of Hai Tran, senior information and operations management and managerial economics major, to the position of undersecretary of international services to the meeting occurring on Oct. 18 was approved due to Tran being unable to attend the meeting on the seventh.

The only new business introduced during the meeting was proposed by the Chair of the Undergraduate Registry Oversight Committee, William Hood, who proposed an amendment to Title VII, Chapter 7, Section 6 of the Constitution, calling for the replacement of the former guidelines for RSO applications.

The meeting concluded with the officer’s report, where Associate Speaker Cody Germain announced the recent opening of the positions of clerk and records officer.

The SGA’s third meeting of the year will be held on Oct. 15, in the Cape Cod Lounge at 6:30 pm.

James Angell can be reached at [email protected]. Olivia Pang can be reached at [email protected].