Tracy signs off on internal budget, allocations bill
Student Government has ordered 10 new iPads to go along with the 20 it purchased last year for students to check out from Thomas Cooper Library.
The price for the additional tablets was not immediately available after the Student Senate meeting Wednesday night, but the 20 SG bought last year cost the library $500 apiece, and SG officials said the new ones should be about that same price.
The tablets have been in extremely high demand, and between 70 and 80 interested students are being turned away per week, according to Miller Hane, SG’s secretary of academics. Hane and Student Body President Kenny Tracy hope the 10 additional tablets will better accommodate students.
When the iPads are turned in, the students who checked them out are sent a survey on how they used them, Hane said, and they’ve reported using them for academic and entertainment purposes.
“They say ‘I used it for class, taking notes, recording lectures, using the applications that come on it,’” Hane said. “Almost everybody said they used it primarily for academic purposes but they were also used to do other fun things they wanted.”
Hane said he wasn’t sure when the new ones will arrive, but he and Tracy both praised the initiative as an incorporation of new learning styles and new technology students are excited about.
Tracy’s announcement of the new tablets at the meeting preceded a ceremony in which he signed several Senate bills that had been introduced this semester. Among them:
— The student finance committee’s $109,670 internal SG budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year and the $98,316 allocations bill for the Spring 2013 semester
The internal budget doesn’t deviate much from last year’s, Student Body Treasurer Coy Gibson said. Gibson said he’s working on moving the preparation of the budget from the beginning of a treasurer’s term to the end.
The allocations bill funds events for 85 different student organizations over the course of the next year.
— The establishment of a Department of Organizational Outreach, which will bring together the various executive and legislative offices to coordinate a collaborative effort to go to students and get feedback on various initiatives
Adam Mayer, the coordinator for Senate outreach, said the organization will increase communication between SG and the rest of the student body.
It’s visited 33 organizations thus far and spoken to more than 1,140 students, Mayer said.
“We truly value the opinions of the students,” Mayer said. “Somewhere along the line communication was lost between Student Government and students.”
Mayer said the newly founded department’s goal is “to go out to students, since they weren’t coming to us.”
— The establishment of a Smoke/Tobacco Free Carolina Study Board, which will survey students to determine interest in banning tobacco products on campus
Mayer said working with that committee will be one of the first goals of the organizational outreach department.
— A resolution on behalf of the entire student body, officially celebrating the life of Domonique Livingston, a 22-year-old employee at the Russell House Chick-fil-A, who passed away on Oct. 29
Livingston was a special presence in the Gamecock Park establishment who brought joy to those around him, Student Body Vice President Chase Mizzell said, and Senate wanted to remember him.
“It’s important because we want to recognize that every member of the Gamecock family is important to us, whether it be student, faculty or staff,” Mizzell said.
Introduced collectively by the Senate, the resolution reads: “We, as a student body, express our deepest condolences, send our prayers and support to his family during their time of bereavement.”
Senators printed and framed the resolution and presented it to Livingston’s family at his funeral last month.