SGB to require student organizations attendance at allocation meetings

Student Government Board hopes to make its procedures more transparent by requiring student… Student Government Board hopes to make its procedures more transparent by requiring student organizations’ presence at allocation meetings.

At its meeting last night, the Board introduced a new allocations resolution which would develop and enforce procedural guidelines already in effect for the allocations committee and its decisions. It hopes the guidelines will enhance the efficiency of the process.

Board member Phil LaRue read the resolution, which said it was “incumbent” upon SGB to make these changes. Representatives from student organizations are asked to attend weekly SGB meetings, and when they don’t, SGB has more difficulty making informed decisions, LaRue said.

The Board recommended its potential procedures become effective immediately, although it will not vote on the resolution until next week.

“This resolution will be automatically postponed until the following meeting for the Board’s and students input,” Shull said.

A section of the resolution states that when a student organization’s allocations request is being reviewed, a representative of the group must attend that SGB meeting. If the student representative fails to attend, the group’s allocations request will be postponed and placed on the agenda for the following week.

If the student representative fails to attend the second SGB meeting, no action will be taken, and the request will be considered withdrawn. Organizations can re-submit the request to the allocations committee for another hearing.

However, the Board reserves the right to waive the attendance requirement and act on the request without the presence of the organization’s representative.

Shull said the allocations process has been a topic of constant discussion, and because transparency has been an issue in the past, he and the Board wanted to make it more of an issue.

The Board currently has these procedures in place, but they aren’t written down, Shull said. He said by passing the resolution, SGB hopes to show it expects student groups to read the allocations manual.

Shull is also attempting to move SGB meetings to Nordy’s Place to increase traffic flow and attendance.

Shull said he has been in contact with WPTS to try to get live air coverage from Board meetings. This would give students more opportunities to hear what happens at meetings, Shull said.

For now, the meetings will remain on the eighth floor of the William Pitt Union.

As another incentive to increase attendance, students will now receive OCC credit for attending Board meetings.

Shull attended the first annual Pittsburgh Student Government Council meeting yesterday. Representatives from student governments around the city met, including Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, Carlow University and the Community College of Allegheny County.

The Council talked about its goals and different initiatives it can do collectively, Shull said.

SGB Notes

—Board member Laura Paiewonsky encouraged students to help the Bucket Brigade, donating toothbrushes, bars of soap and other items into the buckets located on the ground floor of the Union.

“It’s really something our student body needs to come together and pull together for,” said Paiewonsky.

—SGB, pairing up with the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, will be co-sponsoring the Pancakes and Politics on February 16 at 8:30 a.m. in the Assembly Room.

—SGB will be repairing the neon panther located in Schenley Cafe. A former board donated the panther.