Three new senators appointed to SGA

By Bella Grimaldi

News Editor

Student Government Association swore in three new senators at the Oct. 7 meeting. 

The three senators are Kait Eller, Yisel Bedoya, and Caleb Conners.

Senator Eller was elected to SGA in the Sept. 26 election.

Eller said since she is a transfer student and a commuter, she was interested in joining SGA because she wanted to get involved with the University’s community. 

“I’m very interested in the events committee and just getting involved in the school and putting things together so that other people can feel involved in a way I didn’t previously,” she said.  

Conners was also elected to the Senate but had to be appointed since he didn’t accept his position in time, according to César Matos, SGA president.

Conners said he has been looking to get more involved on campus, especially as a commuter. 

“I thought this would be a good way to, hopefully, make a positive impact,” he said.

He added he is looking to work on improving the game room, among other issues.

According to Matos, Bedoya showed interest in SGA following the elections and joined through the appointment process.

Bedoya said she wanted to join SGA because she hasn’t joined as many groups as she would like to and is passionate about student government.

She said she believes now is the right time to join after gaining experience in leadership, working as an orientation leader in the summer.

“I’ve seen a lot of micro-issues that could still definitely be addressed, and I think joining SGA is the perfect reason to do so,” said Bedoya.

Senator Conners and Senator Bedoya were both appointed by SGA to the Senate after unanimous votes.

After the new senators were sworn in, Matos set forth a proposal to remove the SGA Code of Conduct as a membership requirement.

Matos said the reason for the removal is that the SGA Code of Conduct is in violation of the University’s code of conduct. 

He said, “Basically we have two codes of conduct now, one for SGA and another for the University. And the University is like, ‘If somebody is in violation of your code of conduct, then they’re in violation of our code of conduct. If you’re going to have a code of conduct, it better not overlap with our code of conduct.’”

Rachel Spezia, SGA advisor, said if members were in violation of the SGA Code of Conduct, they would be referred to the Dean of Students, who handles University conduct.

She said, “The language was exactly the same. And also, [for] student government itself, if someone was found in violation of it, we don’t want students holding other students accountable in that way.”

Spezia added, members of SGA have to abide by and uphold their constitution and bylaws. 

Matos said, “The idea is if there’s any breaking of the rules, it’s not SGA’s responsibility to hold you accountable. It’s the University’s existing processes to hold you accountable to what you signed up for when you became a student of FSU.”

Events Coordinator Alix Ayoub motioned to amend the SGA Constitution by removing the code of conduct. Senator Mari Awuah seconded the motion.

The motion to approve the removal of SGA’s Code of Conduct passed unanimously. 

Matos introduced the changing of the vice chair of the Events Committee from treasurer to publicist. 

Taylor Royal, SGA publicist, said, “The publicist and events coordinator work very closely together to advertise, cover, and get this information out to the student body. So, we felt that it kind of took out that ‘middleman’ where it can make our communication more effective and get the information put together and sent out in time.”

According to Ayoub, this change would allow the treasurer to join a governance committee since those meetings overlap with the Events Committee meetings.

There was no debate on this change and the motion passed unanimously. 

According to Matos, this change will start this week.

SGA then voted to hold an expedited Senate meeting at 7:30 p.m. following the club representative meeting on Oct. 14.

This meeting will discuss the creation and implementation of a temporary Safety and Security sub-committee within the Student Affairs Committee. 

Ayoub said she is bringing back recognizing SGA eBoard member of the week with, a temporary, “You-Rock Ram.” She presented the “You-Rock Ram” to Vice President Shubham Valand. 

She said, “He is the only new eBoard member who has not already been prepared for this role and he’s doing a great job trying to catch up.”