Photo credit: Sydne Vigille
On Monday's Florida A&M student government association meeting, staff was supposed to be reviewing, for the third time, the constitutional articles. However, the Senate did not reach quorum. Not reaching quorum is when the Senate does not have enough people to effectively hold a meeting.
On FAMU’s campus, the senators represent the student body.
“If there aren’t enough senators to accurately represent the student body than a meeting can’t be held,” said Khari Climes, senior business administration student and current senior senator. “In meetings, we take votes that will typically end up affecting laws and other things that take place on FAMU’s campus. If we can’t represent half of the student body when presenting laws, then a meeting can’t be held.”
“We can’t move forward when we don’t reach quorum,” said senior senator and senior broadcast journalism student Jeremiah L. Carter. “Many people in leadership need to make sure they’re accommodating their schedules accordingly when signing up for positions such as senator. Being a voice for the student body is an important job.”
In addition to reviewing constitutional articles, the nominee for Secretary of Graduate Affairs was coming up for confirmation. Also, a few constitutional amendments were supposed to be passed. Many documents were tabled tonight and have to be looked over another day.
“This meeting was actually planning to be brief today due to the fact that we already passed the budget for the year,” said Taylor Hall, a sophomore political science major, and the Internal Development Select Committee chairman. “The budget is around 2.8 million, however, it still has to be passed by the university president.”
Applications for Chairman positions were due and submitted to Rochard Moricette, the new Senate president for next year. Moricette will be picking the new chairs for the upcoming school year.
The next two meetings will consist of confirmations for the Engineering Branch and cabinet.
Student Government training will be held this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It’s mandatory for all members of SGA, including new members as well.
“The new junior senators who were just elected in the past elections will be attending this training. As the SGA president and Vice-president elects will also be there,” said Taylor Young, a junior broadcast journalism student and the Vice Chair of the Student relations committee.
Most articles in the constitution were supposed to be made law in today’s meeting. Also, activity and service reports were also going to be established during today’s meeting. “All we do is interview the different organizations that received funding from last year’s budget to see if money was being used in the correct way,” said Xavier McClinton, a first-year economics student.
The Senate has rescheduled their meeting for Wednesday, April 11 at 6 pm.