New business discussed at the Student Government Association (SGA) meeting on Wednesday included the induction of two new senators, two resolutions being brought to the table and the discussion of the McCabe Scholarship funds and utilization.

Student Government Association (SGA) discussed two new resolutions and swore in two new senators to office during the Senate meeting held Feb. 20.

The first order of business for SGA was to introduce new senators Chris Pitre as the College of Liberal Arts representative and Sami Landers as Deputy Chief Justice. These new members were sworn into SGA in the presence of their senators and will serve as representatives for the remainder of the year.

Next, Vice President of Academic Affairs Bethany Kyle and College of Business Administration senator Tye Doty presented Resolution 02-14 before the meeting members. This resolution requested for student athletes to be given the opportunity to register for classes a week prior to senior students. The matter had no debate and was passed unanimously among the senate. Resolution 02-14 will be presented to the House of Representatives at next Wednesday’s meeting.

Vice President of University Operations, Abigal Fesmire, and Pitre brought Resolution S-03-14 before the Senate in the hopes of creating a student lounge for music majors in the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center.

Fesmire and Pitre argued that music members were not being allocated a location of their own in the building specifically for studying and were pressing to turn three of the music practice rooms into a lounge by removing the dividing walls between them.

This resolution saw much debate among the senators as they discussed to needed budget to complete this project as well as the utilization of a new space.

SGA advisor Dr. Mike Leese gave input to resolve the argument by stating, “We are already doing construction and renovations around campus, so removing a few extra walls would not be too much of an expense and construction could be completed during the summer to prevent disruption of classes.”

This resolution was passed through the Senate by a two-thirds vote and will also be presented to the House next week for discussion.

The meeting was concluded after a discussion on the McCabe Scholarship which was established by the SGA in 2006.

Senators raised the fact that the scholarship was not being completed by many students on campus because the criteria are too extensive and it is not well known.

Student Body President Chance Cerda gave the idea to raise the scholarship from $500 to $800 to promote student interest.

After some debate, this number was raised to the possibility of $1000 and to raise the needed GPA from 2.4 to 3.0 on the majority of the categories.

Overall, senators agreed that more advertisement of this scholarship was needed to promote applications being turned in by students.

No adjustment of the reward amount has been decided at this time, but the matter will be brought before the Senate in future meetings.