SGB unanimously eliminates committee

‘ ‘ ‘ Student Government Board unanimously eliminated the freshman affairs committee at a… ‘ ‘ ‘ Student Government Board unanimously eliminated the freshman affairs committee at a meeting last week. ‘ ‘ ‘ The decision came after a request from its committee chair, Trista Polaski, and board member liaison Ryan Haddad. ‘ ‘ ‘ The vote at Tuesday’s meeting came after the issue was brought up at the SGB presidential debate earlier this month, when allocations chair and president-elect Kevin Morrison and board member Amanda Reed said they would eliminate the freshman affairs committee if they had to choose one. ‘ ‘ ‘ Polaski said she supported the board and felt there was too much overlap with the University’s First Year Experience program, the Outside the Classroom Curriculum credit and Resident Life programs. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘It’s not that I don’t feel freshman affairs are important,’ said Polaski. ‘Right now, I don’t feel like we have any job specifically to do inside the Pitt community, inside Student Government Board.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ Haddad said with all of Pitt’s programming for freshmen, the committee has become less useful. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘We give [Polaski] a title and a job, but everything she does is kind of redundant because the University does so much already,’ said Haddad. ‘ ‘ ‘ Polaski added, ‘There are just so many programs for freshmen right now that we were muddying the waters and wasting SGB’s time and money while all these departments are doing so much for freshmen.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ The freshman affairs committee is an ad hoc committee like the food committee. Neither are written into the SGB constitution, and they exist at the board’s discretion. ‘ ‘ ‘ The board also approved the spring term budgets for student organizations and approved the election results, which are now final. ‘ ‘ ‘ Morrison and elected board members Andrew Freeman, Lance Bonner, Nila Devanath, Alexa Jennings, Ada Noh, Max Greenwald, Charles Shull and Katlyn Jennings will form next year’s SGB.