Web Exclusive: SGA coverage

By Kelly Conniff, senior writer
Posted on November 8, 2007

This Tuesday’s Student Government Association meeting was punctuated by support for various bills in Virginia and the allotment of coveted program grants.

Executive Treasurer Robert Burden presented information about a student Bill of Opinion that supports legislation that is currently in Congress concerning discrimination in the workplace

“Virginia does not currently have any legislature about discrimination in the workplace due to sexual orientation,” Burden said. “Together, Madison Equality and the SGA support federal legislation to stop workplace discrimination”

The Bill of Opinion was brought up in the meeting because it had received 200 student signatures. The bill will be brought up again in a future SGA meeting when 10 percent of the student body (roughly 1.700 students) signs the bill. If this occurs, Burden says that the SGA will most likely send copies of the Bill to Virginia representatives and the author of the original bill.

Burden asked those present to strongly consider supporting the bill by promoting its existence to students.

“We’ll be on the commons encouraging people to sign this bill,” he said. “Madison Equality is really trying to help, and we’ve had good feedback from faculty so far.”

The SGA voted unanimously to approve a Contingency Bill for the Society of Automotive Engineers, which offers $2,000 to the group for uses specified in their application.

Another Contingency Bill that would financially support the color guard was presented to the Senate and will go to the Finance Committee for approval next week.

Program grants took up a large portion of the meeting as several groups made presentations requesting funds for their programs. A program grant provides funding to non-FEB student organization that seeks money to help put on programs that would benefit JMU’s campus. The groups made presentations to the Finance Committee on Saturday regarding their request for funds and decisions were made regarding financial allotments at that time.         

However, Tuesday’s meeting provided the groups with another opportunity to present their plea to a larger audience, and members of the Finance Committee noted the differences in presentation and development of ideas.

Two groups, the Moziac Dance Club and Hillel, both did not initially receive any portion of the funding they requested due to lack of preparation in their Saturday presentations, according to members of the Finance Committee. Despite this, senators attempted to help secure some funds for Moziac to present its Dance Week while UPB negotiated with Hillel over bringing Mike Reiss, a producer and writer for “The Simpsons.”

Cinemuse received the entire $5,000 they requested for its third annual film festival, the Chinese Student Association got $2,848 out of the $3,071 for its Annual Culture sure and E.A.R.T.H. and JMU Progressives were awarded $7, 995 out of the $9,995 they requested in order to present E.A.R.T.H. Week in February.