The second SGA meeting of the semester took place on Wednesday, February 20th in the Moore Community Room (ASAC 100), starting at 8:00pm. The livestream of this meeting is available on the SGA Facebook page. The meeting was initially supposed to occur on February 13th, but was pushed forward a week due to weather concerns. The meeting schedule from now on should not be affected by this meeting’s delay.
There were several topics brought up during the Student Body Comments. One such topic was the problem of oil leaking on the walkways and roads during Maintenance’s snow removal. Maintenance addressed the problem, stating that each time they fixed a piece of equipment, another would break. This made cleaning the oil tough. Other comments complained about two giant frost heaves appearing on campus. One is in front of the Hornet’s Nest, which causes a hazard since it is not lit at night to indicate its presence. The other is on the road between Maintenance and the Stonehenge parking lot, on the way to McGoff Hill Road. This one is marked clearly with a sign, so take care when driving over it. Jonathan Davis has brought these concerns to the new Physical Director of NVU.
In Reports and Presentations, Mary Fafard from Marketing spoke about the social media presence of NVU. Her focus was on how clubs could work together with Marketing, and sent a laptop around the room to collect each club’s social media usernames and contact information. She shared some branding tips, such as how to properly type the school’s name and how to tag them on Facebook and Instagram, which are shared below.
There are two ways to write the university’s name. There is “Northern Vermont University – Lyndon” (with spaces on either side of the dash) and “NVU-Lyndon” (with no spaces around the dash). When your club is posting, use the hashtags #NVUDoNorth and #ThisisNVU. On Instagram, tag Northern Vermont University as your location. On Facebook, add them as co-hosts on your club events.
To cap off her presentation, Fafard shared a link to the official style guide of the university. It is still being worked on, but it will eventually include logos and other resources for clubs to use. http://communications.northernvermont.edu/
Moving on to the Financial Update, the budget is currently at around $18,550. If clubs have any financial questions or would like to check for their updated budgets, they can attend Allison’s Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, March 6th from 1-2pm.
The Climate Consensus made a funding request to the SGA to allow students, faculty, and alumni at the university to participate in a New York City race. The race takes place in Queens, and is one of the biggest races held in New York. The consensus has been dedication three days a week to training, and as of last count has at least 17 students, 10 faculty, and 4 alumni participating.
They requested $1,832 in funding, to cover admission into the race, food, and hotel costs for the students participating. With a majority vote, the SGA motioned to grant the consensus $2,000, rounding up from their initial request to allow them to pay for an extra hotel room and more food.
In Other Business, an idea was discussed to give the Adventure program a budget. Katy Ebner will be applying to the departments to see if she can get a share for the program. Otherwise, the budgeting system is being reconsidered. Right now, the distribution is 45% for CAB, 45% for SGA, and the final 10% is for the 10% Committee. If this is the route we end up taking, CAB and SGA’s budgets could be cut to 40% each, with that 10% going to the Adventure program. But this will depend on how much funding the program will need.
Under Club Updates, RA and Peer Leader applications are due on March 15th if you are interested in applying. Admissions stated that if clubs want a table at the next Accepted Students Day, they should contact Anthony Carpino. They would also like clubs to submit pictures to use for events. Spring Weekend planning is still going on, and a couple ideas were discussed. These include a disc golf tournament, hiking and camping, kayaking, open ropes course, and more.
The VSCSA met on February 8th. They discussed switching the State College System from Moodle to Canvas, which has many advantages over the former. It will have 24/7 tech support, software updates, and a free mobile app. They will meet again on March 8th remotely.
The 10% Committee announced that they would install new water stations in 3rd floor ASAC and 4th floor Vail. Some complaints came up about the HAC water station being problematic, and Allison said she would get in contact with JD to see if the committee can replace it. They will also sponsor an NVU Mountain Biking Team, and would like to get capital money to restore the Veteran’s Pond. Finally, they discussed upgrading the Fitness Center and putting up signage for the Disc Golf course.
The meeting adjourned around 9:20pm. The next SGA meeting will take place on March 6th at 8:00pm in the Moore Community Room. As usual, it will also be streamed on the SGA’s Facebook page if you cannot make it to the meeting. We hope to see you there!