SGB discusses upcoming meeting with Provost Bonner, student activities fee

At its last meeting of the semester, Student Government Board discussed an upcoming meeting with Vice Provost Kenyon Bonner and other funding related initiatives.

Vice President of Operations Sarah Siddiqui and SGB President Ryan Young announced that they have an upcoming meeting with Vice Provost Bonner. They plan to increase the amounts of stipend money that student leaders receive. 

“There’s a lot of positions on campus, like presidents of very large organizations, who are probably sacrificing the opportunity to get paid employment to hold that position,” Young said. “We want to make sure that we’re paying them not necessarily for the work they’re doing, but for that opportunity loss, and to value student voices on campus.”

Young said he is also working on a referendum for the student activities fee.

“No referendum will even be considered if it gets less than about 3% of the student body voting,” Young said. “The activities fee was last raised about six years ago — it was raised from $80 to $100. Since then, inflation has been about 20%. With rising costs and demand, we’ve had to give out less money than we want to.”

Board Member Braydan Issermoyer attended the Dietrich Undergraduate Council meeting on Thursday and said the council is looking to change the policy surrounding AI.

“We began looking at updating the academic integrity policy to reflect the growing usage of AI among students,” Issermoyer said. “That will be a process that we will be undertaking for quite a while. So we are starting with Dietrich and then we’ll actually move through the process up to the provost office.”

SGB also introduced a new charter creating an allocations task force, separate from the allocations committee, which aims to oversee the new platform Experience Pitt.

“The primary objective of this task force is to deliberate on and recommend changes to

Title 3 of the Governing Code, and to create and recommend an allocations bill

according to these recommended changes,” according to the charter. “The secondary objective of this task force is to oversee the change of platform to Experience Pitt.”

Allocations:

U.S. Institute of Theater Tech requested $3,000 to attend a conference. The board approved this request in full.

ASL Club at Pitt requested $4,000 to attend a conference. The board amended and approved this request.

Bioethics Bowl requested $5,000 to attend a competition. The board amended and approved this request.

Women’s Lacrosse requested $13,540.47 to compete in a tournament. The board amended and approved this request. 

Panther Racing requested $12,893.58 for general safety expenses. The board amended and approved this request in full. 

Women’s Club Volleyball requested funds to compete in a tournament. The board postponed the request. 

Muslim Student Association requested $2,496.96 to attend a conference. The board amended and approved this request.

Mastana, a cultural competitive dance team at Pitt, requested $2,791 to attend a competition. The board approved this request in full.