The Shippensburg University Student Government Association (SGA) announced changes to the process for approving student groups at its third public meeting of the semester held on Feb. 23.  

Brea Neal, SGA vice president of Student Groups announced a change to new student group approval. Effective as of Thursday’s meeting, the Student Groups and Activities Committee (SGAC) will no longer be accepting new student group requests for the remainder of the school year.

“We’re going to be reviewing our policies and what we have going on within SGA first, before looking at new student groups,” Neal said.

Neal explained that moving forward, new student groups will only be approved from August to October each year. Citing a large influx of new student group applications this year, a member of the committee expressed the need for “looking over all [student groups] and being able to find out how many of the groups we can condense.”

The member continued “At this point, we’re just wasting money approving all of these student groups. Until we can find a baseline to control them and get it back in a place where it's not four groups doing the same thing, then there’s no point in adding any more.”

In other news, the meeting’s new business included the appointment of three new senators into vacant positions — Ray Herman Jones as NPHC senator, Diamond Farmer as College of Business senator and Isabell Schannauer as RHA senator. A motion was also adopted to appoint Keegan Houston as an at-large member of the SUSSI board of directors.

RHA Senator Connor Baca recalled a successful and constructive President’s Hour held on Feb. 20. The next President’s Hour will be held on April 4 in the Naugle Hall MPR from 8-9 p.m. Baca also promoted RHA’s “Mocktails” event, planned for March 29, in the CUB from 7-9 p.m. Signups will be available in the coming days.

Senators Takahashi (Commuters) and Sharifi (International) encouraged students to contact them to discuss issues important to them. Their information can be found on flyers in the CUB. Senator Sharifi was also announced to have been elected to the executive committee for Shippensburg’s University Forum.

Various committee chairs announced that their committees will begin meeting regularly starting this week. Meeting minutes can be found outside the SGA office (CUB 201).

Ethan Rosenberry, vice president of Finance announced a change to the Budget and Finance committee standing rules, reducing the quorum required to vote on matters from six to four. The committee has recently been struggling to maintain membership, and the change is meant to allow it to conduct important business.

Before adjourning, students were reminded that SGA elections are being held this week through this Thursday, March 2. Students can vote through Campus Groups using a link sent via email Monday morning.

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