The Student Government Association held its first meeting of the fall 2024 semester on Tuesday, where senators were appointed to the Senate and the Judicial Council, the budget and several committee heads were approved and President Timothy Caboni delivered university updates to the 24th Senate.
Caboni gave remarks on the university’s plans to update Douglas Keen Hall, Hugh Poland Hall, the Gordon Ford College of Business and Cherry Hall, the restructuring of the Mahurin Honors College, the push for WKU to become an R2 research institution and the completed Opportunity Fund goal. These were sentiments Caboni shared in his annual Faculty and Staff Convocation.
“Lastly, and this may be my most important accomplishment as president of the university, beginning this fall orange chicken is a meal swipe,” Caboni concluded.
Student Body President Sam Kurtz nominated WKU students Aziz Umarov, Madison Payne, Neill Kane and Sam Dorris to serve on the 2024-2025 Judicial Council. The Senate approved each nomination unanimously.
Kurtz expressed his desire to update Judicial Council nominations, bringing Chief Justice Ellen Henderson into the conversation. Kurtz said when he took on Student Body President last year he met with Chief Justice Ellen Henderson to conduct sit down interviews.
The Senate also unanimously approved the appointment of five new senators, including the first Mahurin Honors College senator.
The new senators are:
Senators-at-Large
Garrett Price
Megan Farmer
Kaison Barton
Ogden College of Science & Engineering Senator
Hadley Whipple
Mahurin Honors College Senator
Caden Lucas
SGA also approved each of the new Committee Heads who were present. These include Hannah Evans for the Legislative Operations Committee, Savanna Kurtz for the Student Experience and Enrollment Committee, Ryan Dilts for the Outreach and Public Relations Committee, Megan Farmer for the DEI Committee, Sophia Bryant for the Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Committee and Annie Finch for the Community Relations Committee.
In SGA Chief Financial Officer Ethan Taylor’s report, the new SGA budget was introduced and unanimously approved. The $100,000 budget aims to focus on 3 goals: legislative spending, maximum efficiency and collaboration.
Changes to the budget from previous years include an increase in legislative discretionary spending, increase in the area of office worker and stipend spending and a decrease in public relations spending.
Taylor states that the reasoning for these changes is to create more opportunity to represent the student body and maximize efficiency, as some areas of the budget last year were not utilizing the available funds.
News Reporter Bradlee Reed-Whalen can be reached at [email protected].
