The Student Association held its 19th meeting of the academic year Tuesday evening with Christopher Collins-McNeil as the new SA president and Emily Nassir as the new head of the senate and SA vice president. The number of senators needed to make quorum was satisfied.
The minutes from last meeting and the agenda for the current meeting were both approved.
There was one guest to the Senate. Christine Somers, a student representative from the Cinema and Screen Studies Department, requested $300 to put on a senior showcase for all Cinema and Screen Studies majors on Saturday, May 9. This request includes money for catering through Auxiliary Services including coffee, assorted teas, cookies and bagged snacks for the event. In the past, the faculty would pay out of pocket and this year the students want to get funding for it. Sen. Tyler Jodeit agreed to write the bill for proposal and it was moved to the finance committee.
There was no public comment.
In executive reports, Collins-McNeil said he has been sitting in on SAPB interviews to help with the process of hiring new directors for next year. He updated the Senate about the faculty meeting.
Collins-McNeil also mentioned he is working on another city hall-style meeting with the Oswego State President Deborah Stanley. He contacted a graphic designer with the goal of advertising to more students and getting more people to come to the meeting with Stanley and her council to voice their questions and concerns about Oswego.
He announced to the senate that he and Nassir were introducing themselves to the administration to make sure they know who the new representatives of the student body are. He said how he was in meetings all week with administrators and different groups in order to create better partnerships.
Next week, Collins-McNeil plans on hiring new directors. Applications are available for students to apply.
He clarified that Tucker Sholtes, the former SA president, is still involved and responsible for the concert. He announced that they are looking into putting advertisement for the concert on radio stations in the Rochester and local areas. He reminded the Senate that his email and office hours are posted on his door in The Point.
“Emily and I are really excited to be SA president and vice president, so please bring us anything because I really want to work with the Senate,” Collins-McNeil said.
He wants to improve the relationship between the senate and the directors. There is still discussion on the changes that will be made for next year.
Nassir addressed a lot of major ideas to the Senate. She informed the Senate that she reserved the Fallbrook Lodge in September for all of the senators and the directors to go through training and get to know each other. She is looking to get dinner catered that night and have a student representative from another SUNY school come in and present about how their Senate is run and what they do differently to get an outside perspective.
She also asked the Senate if they would prefer changing Senate dinner. Instead of taking time to go to the dining hall before the meetings, she proposed to use that money and get food to eat during the Senate meetings. Each meeting the Senate could decide what food they would prefer for the next meeting. They would also have one dinner each month to go to the dining hall, wearing their SA apparel in order to show that they are in SA and reach out to the student body as a group. Having food at the meetings would also act as an incentive for students to join the Senate.
Nassir also opened discussion for next year about creating standards for clubs in order to be able to receive funding from SA. After it was discussed, they proposed an idea to give student clubs the opportunity to fill out paperwork periodically to inform SA about what’s happening in the club.  It was also mentioned that this paperwork could be considered when giving the clubs funding.
She also announced to the Senate that she wants to improve promoting SA and getting more people involved. She shared that she started a new Senate Twitter with the handle, @OzSenate.
The Senate also discussed presenting what SA is and what they do in big introduction classes, hosting a spring involvement fair and updating the logo in the Marano Campus Center Arena.
Elena Sanchez-Freeman, director of finance questioned whether or not to budget for the student discount cards for next year. The Senate discussed a better way to handle the distribution of discount cards for next year.
In committee reports, the Rules and Judiciary Committee are continuing to go over the code. The Finance Committee is meeting with Vocal Effect and the Student Involvement Committee plans to prepare for a homecoming event for next year. Nassir suggested that the Student Involvement Committee assign one person to handle SA’s publicity.
There were no hall council reports, general orders or special orders.
In senator issues, it was asked whether the SA stickers would be used for the Centro buses next year.  Sanchez-Freeman informed the Senate that because of budgetary reasons, students might have to pay $2 in order to ride the Syracuse bus route on the weekends. Although this is still being discussed.
SA meets every Tuesday at 6 p.m. in Lanigan 107. All meetings are open to the public.