Ashlyn Kelly
SGA approved a funding request from Comic Book Club and prepared for the upcoming Administrators’ Forum during its March 9 meeting over Zoom.
Comic Book Club President Ryan Feinblatt requested $7,500 for a panel of voice actors.
According to Feinblatt, Comic Book Club is partnering with the Student Union Activities Board to hold the event, and they are planning to book Frank Welker, who voices Scooby-Doo, and Rob Paulsen, who voices Yakko Warner from “Animaniacs.”
“He’s very much in the pop culture sphere right now, as well as Welker, who has been doing Scooby-Doo for 60-plus years, so these are very well known people,” he said.
According to Feinblatt, he and Brendan Fraser, SILD student involvement coordinator, have been in contact with the voice actors’ agents for “almost a month now.”
The request was approved 10 – 1 with no abstentions.
SGA then brainstormed ideas and questions for the upcoming Administrators’ Forum.
SATF Treasurer Ewnie Fedna said she is concerned about cameras not working in the parking lots.
“A friend of mine – her car got hit in a parking lot, and the cameras weren’t working or something, so they couldn’t help her, essentially,” she said.
President Olivia Beverlie said her car was buried in the parking lot after the last snowstorm.
“They basically plowed everyone’s cars in and also did not provide shovels, literally anything. ... A nice facility worker was nice enough to take the little Bobcat and shovel out the front of my car for me, but that’s not like an every person scenario,” she said.
Secretary Lexi Kays said she is “fed up” with the Education Department.
She said she believes there is a lack of communication.
“I feel as though $80,000 of my money has been literally _ushed down the toilet – that’s how upset I am about this situation and I know I’m not the only one,” she added.
Beverlie said she would like to “bring up again the Counseling Center and how it’s underfunded.
“We don’t even have someone who can prescribe like actual meds there,” she said. “They don’t have that at the Counseling Center anymore like they used to. There’s no prescriber so if someone does want to be medicated, they have to go to outside like their PCP [primary care physician/provider].”
Senator Hillary Nna said she would like to know what the University is doing “around anti-racism and inclusion besides the brief incoming training that you’re required to take.
“I didn’t attend the Zoom session [concerning decals related to white supremacy groups found on campus] because I think this issue affects everyone differently, and my emotions around it can be really intense, and I didn’t want to go into a meeting where I wasn’t really sure how that was going to be taken,” she said.
Fedna said she believes the anti-racism forums should be hosted by faculty of color. “From a Black person’s perspective, I would feel more comfortable going there knowing that another person of color [is] hosting it.”
Beverlie said she also wants to talk about the use of money in relation to the anti-racism efforts.
She said, “One of the emails that floated across my desk was like a good chunk of change for just signs that said, ‘Love is love, science is real.’ And to me, I sit and think like, OK, this is performative. ... You’re not actually doing anything by having those signs.
“I’m kind of just getting tired of the university throwing up signs and thinking that that’s going to be that and that that’s us being anti-racist when it’s literally not and it’s quite the opposite, and it’s trivializing to some degree,” she added.
Student Trustee McKenzie Ward said when more decals were found on campus after the initial email from President F. Javier Cevallos, it “was really concerning that I found that out through a Facebook post by a student leader rather than an administrator or anyone in the executive staff.”
Senator Eryca Carrier said she would like to “push for conversations about things that happen on campus to be talked about in the classroom.
“Classrooms are the best way to access everybody, so I think trying to promote and take advantage of that setting is really valuable,” she added.
Beverlie said, “The heading of the email itself was so conspicuous, saying ‘decals.’ It was almost clickbait because it’s like, ‘What? Are you handing out free stickers? Am I going to get a bumper sticker?’ That was my first reaction when I saw that.”
Ward said, “I had the same reaction. I had an even stronger reaction when yesterday’s email was, ‘Update on last week stickers.’
“Can we think about better wording before sending out emails, but especially when it’s such a serious topic and affecting every single student on campus?” she asked.
In her president’s report, Beverlie said because of the University changing its seal, she is thinking about “buying the rights to some type of documentary or informational video about Indigenous people.
“It would be really cool if we could do some type of informational video moment,” she added. “Students will have the link for 24 hours to watch the video, and possibly have some type of discussion forum to talk about it,” she added.
During her vice president’s report, Abigail Salvucci said, “SAC [Student Adairs Committee] is getting the ball rolling on some really cool ideas, like civic engagement on campus – Hillary’s [Senator Nna] been doing a lot of work with figuring out a bee garden and bee hotels.”
Senator Mark Haskell, who sits on the Student Advisory Council, said he “discussed with Katie Abel a holistic thinking in terms of compartmentalization, examining bills, and proposed improvements to said bills, hunger, [and] a lot of other things, such as free sanitary products.”
During her report, Mariah Farris, SGA outreach and events coordinator, said, “I emailed out last week to the senators sitting on the committee and they each sent me back their form of an event or idea or topic that they want to plan, and we’re going to get that started this week.”
During her report, Paola Bilbraut, SGA diversity and inclusion officer, said Director of Inclusive
Excellence Initiatives Patrica Birch “needs four female-identifying individuals to read the bios of the ‘Woman Making History Now’ award recipients. The event is virtual on Zoom Tuesday, March 23 from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.”
SGA Advisor Sara Gallegos said in her report, “Leanna Lynch, who is the coordinator of the Veterans Program is leaving the University. She got a wonderful job with the VA. Her last day’s on March 26. I’ll keep you updated on any updates filling that position.
“We’re going to start pulling together all the money that’s ... going to be left out of each organization so that we can kind of look at what the collective spending amount is for the end of the fiscal year. So, just stay tuned for that,” she said.
To end the meeting, Salvucci said she is looking for five students to interview for her thesis to talk about “how college being expensive has changed their experience with college or how, you know, having to choose between buying a textbook or buying a meal or buying clothes.”