In it for the long haul: Incoming Board holds first public meeting

At their first meeting together,  the Student Government Board worked quickly and appointed two Board members to new positions during the Board’s 20-minute debut. 

In two separate unanimous votes, the Board appointed Board member Matt Sykes as vice president and chief of finance, and Natalie Dall as vice president and chief of Cabinet. 

The previous Student Government Board, whose term ended on the first day of the spring semester, created the positions. 

As vice president and chief of finance, Sykes will be in charge of increasing SGB’s transparency, specifically regarding the Student Activity Fund and how SGB allocates the money in the fund. 

“We want to have more of an open-door policy,” Sykes said. “If students have questions or complaints, they can come to me and we can work it out.”

Dall, in her new role as vice president and chief of Cabinet, will give weekly reports on the progress of the Student Government committees.

Dall said the new committee chairs will still make weekly reports, but Dall added that she’ll take on “the liaison role” between the Board and the committees. 

The Board members also expressed how excited they are to start working together on their initiatives. 

The Board spent last weekend, Jan. 9 to Jan. 11, at the yearly SGB retreat. Board member Nasreen Harun said the Board members discussed initiatives, reviewed the SGB Governing Code and performed team-building exercises. 

“It was a great retreat this weekend,” Harun said. “We’re all getting back into the swing of things.” 

Meyer agreed.

“We saw this weekend that this team works really well together,” Meyer said. “We have a year and a half together and I’m really excited to see what we can do.”

In other Action

The Board proposed grammatical and formatting changes to improve clarity in the SGB Governing Code. They will vote on the changes at next week’s public meeting. 

Allocations

PantheRaas requested $2,154.06 to send 20 people to a competition in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Board approved in full in line with the allocations recommendation.