The student senate held its weekly meeting on Monday to discuss committee updates, budgets, and senate nominations.
The senate also welcomed four senators at the meeting. Micaela Tart, Kyah Nelson, Zion Lampley, and Kelton Williams were sworn in by President Xavier McClinton and will serve as confirmed freshman senators for the remainder of the semester.
Nominations for senate president took place with senator Artise Lewis being the only nominee.
Senior senator Theresa Jean- Louis elaborated on the interviews that took place last week for senate seats and announced the rest of the candidates are to be interviewed this Thursday.
Sophomore senator Zachary Bell gave an update on the upcoming impeachment and says the committee will “look into specifics” since there isn’t much information right now. Bell also gave an update on last Monday’s impeachment per the request of President Shanel Brown.
“We’re going to go ahead and meet this week and discuss that, especially being that he didn’t show up for lack of better words,” Bell said. “We are trying to figure out how our next steps should go.”
Sophomore senator Armon McKinney announced that the university has been given $200,000 from the CARES Act to be distributed into the budget for the next fiscal year. McKinney moved to table the budget to next week’s meeting to allow a chance to allocate the budget before presenting it.
Senate President Shantel Brown urged the senate to get their A&S reports in so that the budget is able to be assessed to the organization or entities that need more funding in the academic year.
President Brown is also in talks with the administration about health and wellness days for students and faculty. She updated that the higher-ups in administration are still pushing to add time to the school schedule that will allow for health and wellness days.
“As soon as I get more clarity for dates as far as what days we can do and what those days will encompass, you all will get an update,” Brown said.
“Anything to just help us get a day or two for a mental break especially for students and faculty, while still following the guidelines required of us as a university in the state of Florida,” Brown added.
President McClinton reported that the faculty senate will be meeting Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. to discuss and approve a health and wellness day.
McClinton also gave updates on events that are taking place this week to celebrate Women’s History month and announced that he will be giving testimony Tuesday at the Florida senate subcommittee on education regarding senate bill 86.
The bill proposes major changes to how Bright Futures is funded and the eligibility criteria.
He ended by announcing that the legislation to get Gamble street renamed has been admitted into the discussion as well as addressing student homelessness.
“I’m going to spend a lot of time working on addressing some food and security and getting a lot of resources and dollars to address student homelessness. There are a couple of things we’ve been working with on how we can increase the resources on that.” McClinton said.
Bell reported a meeting will be held this week with partners from Tennessee State University, Bethune Cookman University, and Howard University to put together a plan of action for the HBCU Senate Coalition.
Senate meetings are held every Monday at 6 p.m. To find out more information, visit sga.famu.edu.