The senate meeting ended in near record time Wednesday: lasting only one hour and 45 minutes.
The brief meeting started with many senators giving congratulations to Sens. Vandoline Ivey, Candice Pelham, Elijah Bowdre, Christopher Bryant, James Nero and Anthony Murphy for being re-elected in Tuesday’s elections. The re-elected senators are set to serve for two more school years.
Congratulations were was also given to Sen. Monique Gillum, 19, a sophomore political science student from Gainesville, for being elected as the 2006-2007 student body vice president.
Current Student Government Association President Ramon Alexander gave a brief report on programs and plans that SGA is working on.
Alexander, 22, a senior political science student from Tallahassee, said the work being done with financial aid is currently 45 percent understaffed.
“They are going through infrastructure and personnel changes and bringing in more qualified personnel,” Alexander said.
Alexander also talked about the new intramural fields that are being worked on along with the new gym that will give sports teams a new place to practice.
Brand new stadium lighting will also be installed for the new field; trees have already been cut down so the workers can begin.
Some other things that SGA has planned for the near future include a trip to Baton Rouge, La. for the State of the Black Student Symposium, a Traffic Court Awareness Day, and Poetic Justice which will be hosted by the judicial branch.
Despite the short senate meeting, five bills were read.
The first bill simply stated that the Department of Communications is in charge of bridging the gap between SGA and the student body.
The second bill is to raise money to benefit the nearly 20,000 Leon County residents that are without health insurance and not eligible for government assistance.
The next two bills were proposed by the FAMU College of Law. They included suspension of athletic fees and health fees.
The law school wants to get rid of the fees because the fees are university fees the college must pay. But the fees do not directly benefit the Orlando campus.
Students at the law school do not have any recreational facilities nor do they have health insurance covered by FAMU.
But law students have to pay the same fees as people at FAMU’s main campus.
Toward the end of the meeting, the senators reviewed a bill to show appreciation to the members of the Marching 100 for their performance at the Grammys.
The meeting came to an end after the senators gave their closing remarks and two-minute speeches.
Contact Courtney Henderson at courtney1.henderson@famu.edu