The Student Government Association (SGA) held its third meeting of the 2025-26 school year on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at 6:30 p.m. in the Cape Cod Lounge of the Student Union.

The meeting opened with the Committee of the Whole, where Speaker of the Senate Ishaan Dwivedi discussed information about a potential name change for the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst. The Newton, MA campus was acquired by UMass in 2018 as a Boston satellite school.

The three names under consideration are the Newton Campus of UMass Amherst, the Charles River Campus of UMass Amherst and the Oak Hill Campus of UMass Amherst. The SGA also discussed keeping the current name.

Dwivedi said that renaming the campus was an attempt to “give the campus its own identity,” following the closure of the original school. After the presentation, a QR code was displayed for senators to give their input on all potential name changes. According to Dwivedi, the form could be filled out by non-SGA members as well.

Then SGA continued their conversation from the last meeting, discussing updates to future school calendars. One potential schedule change is an earlier start date for the upcoming academic year, which would see classes start on Sept. 1, rather than after Labor Day. They also discussed the removal of Election Day and Reading Day — the day off before finals, designed to promote studying — from the calendar.

Voting on the calendar will take place on Oct. 15. Additional student input has been encouraged by members of the committee, emphasizing that they wanted to create a calendar that would benefit both students and faculty.

During special orders, the motions to appoint sophomore political science major Sophie Knowles and senior political science major Brianna Ciavardone as Undersecretaries of Veterans Affairs, and senior history major Owen Mullins to the position of Attorney General were approved.

As a cadet for the UMass Air Force ROTC program, Knowles faced questions from the senate regarding her plans as an Undersecretary of Veteran Affairs, commenting on her plans to increase visibility for veterans on campus.

Knowles emphasized the importance of faculty awareness, adding that there should be “workarounds that [student veterans] might need if they need to go to base for a weekend or if they are called away on deployment.”

The SGA also heard the unfinished business from the Oct. 7 meeting, where the committee heard the case to appoint senior information and operations management and managerial economics major Hai Tran to the position of Undersecretary of International Services. A motion to indefinitely table Tran’s appointment was proposed by Chair Morgan Kim.

“There were some changes in priorities and initiative, and we have decided not to move forward with this,” President Michael Borowski said.

A question was raised to clarify the reason for this decision by Senator Charles Hoover-Walker, to which Borowski replied that “more internal discussion was needed and this discussion was made for personnel matters which are private,” concluding further discussion on the issue.

Vice President Gianna Naulivou emphasized that the need for this position is urgent, and there are plans to fill the position after more interviews are conducted.

The subsidiary motion to table the appointment indefinitely was put to a hand-count vote, with 12 individuals voting in favor, six against and 19 abstaining. With this vote tallied, the subsidiary motion was passed.

A motion to reconsider the appointment of Tran was proposed by Chair Leo Nguyen, sending the SGA into recess while Dwivedi conversed with Associate Speaker of the Senate, Cody Germain. Upon the recall of the committee, it was declared that the motion was out of order, leading to the end of the discussion on the topic.

The meeting was finalized with the motion to table all new business until Oct. 22, and the hearing of the officer reports.

The SGA’s fourth meeting of the year will be held on Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m. in the Cape Cod Lounge.

George Coulouras can be reached at [email protected]. Olivia Pang can reached at [email protected].