SGB to pick new members tonight

Pitt’s Student Government Board will fill its two vacancies at its meeting tonight in… Pitt’s Student Government Board will fill its two vacancies at its meeting tonight in Nordy’s Place after a question-and-answer session with the candidates and a private vote by the Board.

The Board received 10 applications for the open positions, two of them from freshmen who may be ineligible for the seats vacated earlier this year by former Board members Ali Noorbaksh and Phil LaRue.

In an e-mail, SGB president Charlie Shull said the candidates will be interviewed as a group during the Board meeting. Shull said candidates will have to demonstrate their familiarity with the Board’s active projects, allocations policies and the overall procedure for allocating the Student Activities Fee.

He added that the board must interview all candidates publicly and cannot separate them or interview them one at a time, thereby providing an unfair advantage to later candidates.

The SGB constitution states in Article IV, Section III, that “a vacancy on the Board not caused by a dismissal shall be filled by a simple majority vote of the total membership of the Board after each candidate has been publicly interviewed.”

SGB bylaws state nominees shall be approved by a simple majority vote of the total membership of the Board.

Potential problems may arise because there are two freshman candidates that have not yet generated a QPA at Pitt, and therefore do not meet one of the eligibility requirements.

After the meeting concludes tonight, the Board will privately select which two applicants to appoint. Shull said the remaining candidates will be ranked in case the two chosen are unable to serve.

Official appointments of the two selected members will occur at the following week’s meeting on Sept. 28.

Prior to the public meeting, the Board reviewed applications submitted by the potential members, and SGB adviser Kenyon Bonner checked each candidate’s eligibility using PeopleSoft data, including major, QPA and academic holds.

Shull said Bonner checks this data every semester for all serving board members to make sure they are still eligible to sit on the Board.

There are three main criteria that determine an applicant’s eligibility, Shull said. The applicants must be in good standing with the University, have a QPA greater than 2.5 and be enrolled as a full-time non-College of General Studies major.

As of Monday afternoon, Shull said he had not heard the University administration’s position on the freshman applicants. Shull believes the freshman will most likely be unable to serve without a QPA, but encouraged them to attend the public meeting to be interviewed.