The bulk of Tuesday’s Student Assembly senate meeting centered around a discussion on the homecoming t-shirt design and ended with the resignation of Sen. John Yoest ’17.
Sen. Eboni Brown ’17 presented three designs for the homecoming green pocket t-shirts funded through the “All about them Shirts, bout the Shirts, no Sweaters” Act.
In senator discussion, many senators voiced their approval for the designs, but some raised opposition to the few slogans recommended for the tees.
“On the first two I don’t like how the phrase doesn’t match up with the picture,” Sen. JC LaRiviere ’17 said. “It says like ‘kicking booty,’ but then there’s no one kicking booty.”
Following more discussion on slogans, SA Vice President Catie Pinkerton ’16 recommended developing slogan ideas later. However, Brown and Sen. Quetzabel Benavides ’16 emphasized the need to decide on a design, so the senate broke into a 5-minute recess.
“I would say design it now, because what’s going to happen is that we’re not going to decide on something, we’re not going to sell t-shirts, and the same thing that’s happened in the past is going to happen again,” Benavides said.
After returning from their recess, senators decided upon a new slogan, “dead pirates tell no tales”, which passed unanimously by roll call.
Moving on, Benavides discussed the Homecoming Grant Act Round 5. She stated that while senators believe it is a good grant, they think it would be better at a different time, which will be discussed in the future.
In new business, Sen. Alaina Shreves ’18 introduced the SA Kickstarter Act, which would make money available for new student organizations that develop during the year.
“It’s going to kind of make money available for new organizations to have access to funding throughout the year,” Shreves said. “Because previously we already have money funded at the end of the year for the next school year for any clubs, but what’s happening now is we have clubs that want to start and have new events throughout the year, but there’s really no money already put aside for them to get funding.”
The bill allocates $2,500 to be set aside for such instances of new clubs and events. The bill also works to offer support and direction to new student organizations. The bill was assigned to the Student Life, Finance and Outreach committees.
At the end of the meeting, Yoest stood up to announce his resignation.
“Tonight is my last senate of the year and of my career, because I am stepping down after a fantastic tenure of about five weeks,” Yoest said. “It’s been an awesome experience working with the Student Assembly, both as vice president of advocacy, then as vice president and now as senator. I had a fantastic time … I’m going to miss working with you all. I am optimistic about working with the Executive some point in the future.”
With Yoest’s resignation, there are now 2 open senate seats for the class for 2017. Those seats will be up for grabs during the upcoming SA elections Sept. 28, which will also feature elections for the class of 2019 senators and class president. The elections will include a class of 2018 presidential race, due to the resignation of Jose Acuna ’18.