Many important topics were discussed at the Student Government Association meeting on Tuesday. However, three of the five bills addressed were unable to pass due to the lack of attendance of many senators.
The lack of senators present during the last portion of the meeting caused the meeting to be cut short, and less bills were passed as a result.
This upset some of the senators that were still present at that time.
“Over half of the senators decided that attending a sorority presentation was more important than performing their duties for the student body,” Jason Horn, senator for the College of Arts and Sciences and chair for the grievances committee said.
Horn said the most important bills on the agenda were not able to be heard or discussed.
Angie Cartwright, president of the SGA said whoever brought forth the bills should have brought out the most important ones first.
“It was nothing personal,” Cartwright said. “Yesterday was a busy day, and many of the senators had prior arrangements and had to leave at 7 p.m.”
“They didn’t leave because they didn’t want to pass the bills,” Cartwright said.
One of the two bills that were passed was regarding students wanting a Starbucks on campus when a Java City is already in place. Aramark recently conducted a blind taste test with 25 students to determine if they preferred Java City or Starbucks drip coffee. 75 percent said they preferred Java City drip coffee over Starbucks.
Despite the results of the taste test, students have said that using drip coffee was not a good choice for a taste test because most students prefer other Starbucks drinks such as frapuccinos, mochaccinos and cappuccinos. SGA has asked Aramark to conduct a more thorough evaluation of the difference between Starbucks and Java City coffee.
The other bill that passed will allow pencil sharpeners to be replaced in rooms 207, 214 and 215 in the Lee Drain Building.
One of the three bills that was not able to be passed at the meeting was about a student referendum that would be placed on the homecoming election ballot.
Another bill asked Aramark to expand the hours of the on-campus convenience store. The bill requested that the convenience store keep the same hours as the Lowman Student Center or stay open for 12 and a half hours a day, opening at 7:30 a.m. and closing at 8 p.m.
One more bill that was not passed had to do with re-opening SGA’s open forum in which students can express opinions and other matters with SGA officers and senators.
Although the bills were the main topics of discussion, other issues were addressed at the SGA meeting.
Kevin Hayes, the director of alumni relations for SHSU was present to answer questions about the new official SHSU class ring. Hayes said students who buy the ring will have their own ring ceremony whereas students who do not buy the official class ring will not. Students will also be able to engrave the inside of their ring, and the cost will vary according to the number of carats.
The 10-carat male ring will cost $499 and the10-carat female ring will cost $369. A student can choose either 10, 14, or 18 carats. The only thing that varies about the official SHSU class ring is the class year. However, students can choose from two different stones, either diamonds or cubic zirconium. Hayes said the point of having the official class ring for SHSU is to start a tradition.
“Our goal with this design, is that if you’re sitting 10 feet away, that you could look and say, ‘That’s a Sam Houston ring.'” Hayes said.
SGA also wanted to warn students that there will be a water outage on Friday from 2 to 3 p.m., and a power outage will occur on Oct. 25 on the south side of campus.