Pitt Student Government Board Constitution may change

Students might soon have a new way to elect their Student Government Board members and an… Students might soon have a new way to elect their Student Government Board members and an addition to the Outside the Classroom Curriculum if the proposals put forward at Tuesday’s SGB meeting go into effect.

Board members announced a referendum to amend the SGB Constitution to allow students to vote for eight board members, as opposed to the current five, at the meeting in Nordy’s Place. If passed, the amendment would go into effect for the 2012 election.

Board member Alex Zimmerman said that the referendum would allow voters to have the ability to choose their ideal board, which consists of eight board members and a president.

“[It] encourages people to learn as much as possible [about the people running],” he said.   

Later in the meeting, Board member James Landreneau announced a proposal that would allow the OCC to give mini-grants to clubs to hold events that fulfill OCC requirements. Landreneau said that the mini-grant would help student groups promote those events.

This mini-grant will be similar to the Alcohol Committee mini-grant but with a lower monetary cap, and the events will not have to take place on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. The University caps the alcohol mini-grants at $1,000. Landreneau said a monetary cap for the proposed program has not yet been decided.

Landreneau could not yet say where the money for the proposed mini-grant program would come from.

The Committee reports brought news of extended library hours for weekends in October. The Hillman Library will stay open until midnight on Friday and Saturday as opposed to the normal 10 p.m. closing time. The Academic Affairs committee urged students to go to the library during the late hours because the administration will be taking attendance to determine if the extended hours should be permanent.

Academic Affairs chair Pooja Patel announced that this year’s Pitt Make A Difference Day, which will take place on Oct. 22, officially filled its 3,600 registration slots. This year’s event had 400 more slots than last year.

SGB members announced that election packets will be available outside of their office on the eighth floor of the William Pitt Union on Monday, Oct. 3, and are due on Oct. 17. The slate forms will be due on Oct. 21 with a mandatory campaign meeting on Oct. 23 and elections on Nov. 17.

President Molly Stieber announced a Pennsylvania Association of State-Related Students conference that will take place over the weekend in the William Pitt Union. The conference will include participants from the state-related universities: Pitt, Temple, Penn State and Lincoln.

“[The] goal is to discuss budget issues … furthering our efforts to assure Pitt stays state-related,” she said.

Allocations

Chabad House was approved $1,250 in accordance with an allocations recommendation for the building of a Sukkah on campus.

Panther Grappling was allotted $1,948.26 for a 3-hour seminar that will also include members from the Mixed Martial Arts Club and Judo Club.

Vietnamese Student Association was approved $625 for a cultural food sampling for an event but was denied $575.01 to run an advertisement in The Pitt News and pay for disposable supplies, because these items had already been covered by the collaborating Chinese American Student Association.  

Pitt Club Tennis was approved $1,026.10 for a tournament in West Virginia but was denied $4.70 because of rounding errors made by the team in the initial paperwork.

Circle K International was allotted $418.71 but was denied $580.89 after allocations initially recommended denying the request in full. The request was proposed to be amended by Zimmerman because it was time-sensitive. This amended request would allow four members of the club to attend a conference.  

Circle K International was granted $600 in full in accordance with an allocations recommendation to cover the club’s dues for the national organization.

One Life One World One Peace was allotted $1,567.20 in full for transportation to a national conference in California.  

Campus Women’s Organization was granted $812.25 to cover the costs of a speaker coming to campus but was denied $812.25 because the event is being co-sponsored by Pan-Hellenic Council.