SGB announces council for first-year student involvement in SGB

In a shortened meeting on Election Night, Pitt’s Student Government Board announced a new council to get first-year students more involved in SGB.

The First-Year Council will be made up of ten first-year students who have an interest in SGB and getting involved on campus early.

The applications for the council are now available on SGB’s website and are due Nov. 22. SGB will hold interviews for positions on Dec. 2, and the new council will begin in January.

Vice president of the cabinet Rohit Anand said the council is going to replace the internship program that SGB has used in the past. Each member of the council will act as a resource for a specific board member’s initiatives. They will also be required to sit on one of the four conditional committees ––  facilities, technology and transportation, community governmental relations, wellness and academic affairs.

According Anand, the idea for the council is modeled after a similar initiative at Penn State University that Anand and other board members learned about at the Pennsylvania Association of State-Affiliated Schools conference in September.

“The point of [Penn State’s program] was to introduce first years to get involved with SGB, show what it does, get them more integrated … so that going forward, they can be more involved if they wish to,” Anand said.

Philip Anderson, the SGB chief of staff, said that the council will help benchmark certain projects and reach out to different students organizations about what resources SGB offers.

“The purpose is to serve as community and research arm for SGB,” Anderson said.

SGB also voted unanimously to pass Bill 40, which would prevent SGB members and Allocations Committee members who are involved with other clubs from requesting or lobbying for SGB funding for those groups.

The bill is meant to prevent any conflicts of interest during the Allocations process, such as from a Board member who is requesting funds as a club president. Although this had previously been an unwritten rule, Board members wanted to solidify the policy into a written bill.

“We wanted to write it in the code so there could never be an issue in the future,” Vice President of Finance Max Kneis told The Pitt News.

Allocations

The Muslim Student Association requested $2,698.04 to host a speaker on campus. The Board approved $2,485.68 and denied $212.36.

The Panther Racquetball Club requested $1,249.15 for a tournament at Purdue University. The Board approved in full.

The Hindu Students Council requested $3,258 for a diwali show. The board approved $3,233 and denied $25.