Senate Meeting

Senate Meeting called to order

1. Regular meeting of the senate, Monday September 21, 2026, 10:00 a.m., Alumni Center. Vice President Keeling presided in the absence of President Arguijo. Secretary Morgan recorded.

2. Invocation

3. Pledge of Allegiance

4. Roll Call

   1. Present: Vice President Keeling, Treasurer Hertel, Secretary Morgan, PR Chair Nunez, Senator Do, Senator Ju, Senator (Phena) Kayode, Senator Landry, Senator Masem, Senator Ortiz.

   2. Absent: President Arguijo, Chief Justice Edwards, Senator Johnston, Senator Nguyen, Senator (Phosa) Kayode.

   3. Vice President Keeling said President Arguijo woke up with a cold and is out sick, and apologized that the senate had not been told beforehand.

Approval of the Minutes

1. Senator Do motioned to approve the minutes of the September 14 meeting and Senator Ortiz seconded. The vote was by a show of hands.

2. The minutes of the September 14 meeting have passed.

Financial Report

1. Treasurer Hertel presented. Little has changed since the last report.

2. Water bottles: $50.00 was allocated and about $42.00 was spent. The receipt was lost. Treasurer Hertel will go back to Casey's today to ask for a reprint.

3. The leftover water bottles will go to the Jet Resource Hub, with a couple kept in Student Life.

4. The ASC project did not use its full allocation. Treasurer Hertel is still waiting on those receipts.

5. Jet Friday: about $195.00 was spent. Josh holds the only receipts and was out of office today.

6. About $35.00 to $40.00 is expected back across those three items.

7. Total spent to date is $5,667.00, leaving $9,333.00 available in the operating budget, which is the budget SGA bills are paid from.

8. The leadership fund has not been touched.

9. Scholarships were paid out of the operating budget rather than the leadership fund, because paying them from the leadership fund would have wiped it out.

Business

1. There were no bills or resolutions before the senate. Vice President Keeling said that with no votes on the agenda it was a good time to go over the SGA website.

2. Website walkthrough

   1. Secretary Morgan walked the senate through the parts of the website that concern senators. He said the site is still being added to and this was not a walkthrough of everything it does.

   2. Availability

      1. The availability page replaces last year's spreadsheet. A senator paints their available times onto a grid, marks blocks as in person or Zoom, clears the blocks they cannot make, and can apply presets such as mornings before noon.

      2. The executive team sees every member's availability aggregated on one screen, and each member's individually, and uses it to set meeting times.

      3. A senator asked whether committees will collect their own availability. Secretary Morgan said committee chairs will use the one availability for now, and that he is considering letting the executive team create additional one-off availabilities per committee.

      4. A senator asked about the hours the grid covers. Secretary Morgan said it stops at 4:00 p.m. because it was built for senate meetings, which are never held after 5:00 p.m., and that he can make the range configurable from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

   3. Next senate meeting

      1. The page formerly called Senate Meetings now shows the next meeting, so a senator can get ready the night before. It carries the agenda, what needs doing before the meeting, the minutes and any bills.

      2. A senator asked when the minutes are ready. Secretary Morgan said he aims to have them done by Wednesday night. Being marked ready for review is separate from remote voting being opened, which is Chief Justice Edwards. He offered to email senators as soon as the minutes are ready if they would prefer that.

      3. A new official documents section holds templates and contracts, and the constitution will be added to it.

   4. Voting

      1. Open ballots appear under Votes, where a senator votes for, against or abstain.

      2. Online voting is opened by Chief Justice Edwards. A senator who knows a bill exists but sees no open ballot should text her or any executive member.

      3. When a bill is amended, an online vote cast before the amendment no longer counts, because that vote was for final passage of the original bill. A senator who voted online and will not be present has to vote again on the amended bill. Members in the room vote in person and their votes are entered manually.

   5. Bills

      1. A bill can be submitted two ways: uploading a finished Word or PDF document, which the site reads to pull out the text and images, or filling in the form on the site. The form is preferred, because SGA then does not have to store the original document. Uploading works best when the document follows the usual bill structure.

      2. The form takes name, author and amount, drops the amount field for a resolution that needs no funding, and repeats the whereas clause on each new line so it does not have to be typed again. Secretary Morgan said the repeating whereas was Treasurer Hertel's idea.

      3. An unfinished bill can be saved as a draft and resumed from the dashboard.

      4. A submitted bill goes to the SGA email and into a queue. An executive member gives it a number and a recommendation and adds it to the agenda.

      5. An executive member can open an emergency written vote by giving it a name and a reason it cannot wait for the next meeting, which emails every senator. Secretary Morgan said last week's water bill went through GroupMe because the site did not support this yet.

      6. A senator asked who can open an emergency vote. Secretary Morgan said only executive members can open one, that any senator or student can write an emergency bill, and that an executive member has to declare it an emergency.

   6. Restock requests

      1. Executive members can add stations to the site, such as the Jet Refuel Station and the Jet Resource Hub, each with a name, shorthand, location, whether it is public and other details.

      2. Students use the restock request page to report a station as empty, choose a category from those configured for it, and suggest items SGA does not currently stock. The request emails the SGA account and is marked restocked once it has been filled.

      3. Each station has a downloadable QR code pointing to it. Secretary Morgan said sharing the code sits with the executive team and with the committee that owns the station.

   7. Elections and email

      1. Secretary Morgan said the site supports elections. Turnout in the September election was poor, and the likely cause is the one-time verification code students receive by email, which students put aside and forget.

      2. SGA is asking IT to let students sign in with their Newman account so that voting is immediate. Failing that, votes would be held in a Microsoft form that students sign into with a Newman account, and the results entered on the site.

      3. A senator asked why emails from the site are slow to arrive. Secretary Morgan said SGA is on a free email plan and does not control deliverability; messages always arrive, but can take up to a minute. He said paying for it is not a necessary expense.

   8. There is a staging copy of the site for members to try things on without affecting the live site. It is behind a shared username and password, which Secretary Morgan gave to the senate.

   9. Treasurer Hertel asked the senators to put laptops and devices away and pay attention, given the hours Secretary Morgan has put into the website and the number of questions the senate has raised about it.

Call to audience

1. No audience members.

Committee Information and Updates

1. Constitution and ethics

   1. Vice President Keeling said President Arguijo sent no updates for either committee.

2. Clubs

   1. Vice President Keeling said she will use the availability page on the website to find a meeting time, rather than texting members for their schedules, and will message the committee after this meeting.

   2. A student is still interested in starting a new club. Vice President Keeling is emailing her and wants a set plan in place before meeting her and her team.

3. Jet Resource Hub

   1. Treasurer Hertel has drafted Jet Broadcast announcements for both the faculty and the student broadcast, because the Jet Resource Hub has moved to McNeil room 110, the same floor on the opposite side of the building. The faculty broadcast asks for donations; the student broadcast informs students of the move.

   2. Treasurer Hertel asked every senator to go and see the new room so they can direct students to it, and to talk to students about items the Jet Resource Hub has not stocked before.

   3. Sister Therese is planning a week-long food drive for National Food Day. She has been given a list of snacks and drinks from the standard restock list, and Treasurer Hertel asked the senate to tell her anything else that should be added to it.

   4. Social media posts about the food drive will follow once Treasurer Hertel has spoken to PR Chair Nunez. She asked the senators to repost them.

   5. Treasurer Hertel asked the Jet Resource Hub committee to react to her GroupMe messages so she knows they have been read.

4. Security and grounds

   1. Secretary Morgan said the committee has set its meeting time at Mondays 7:00 p.m. bi-weekly, with the first meeting tonight, and that it will discuss bill ideas and start work on the committee's first bill.

   2. The meeting will be in person, in the Bishop Gerber Science Center or the library. Secretary Morgan will text the members.

Advisor Updates

1. Shark Tank proposal

   1. Dean Chambers presented a proposed event in a Shark Tank format. Students outside SGA would pitch an event they want to run, covering marketing, cost and the work involved, and SGA would act as the sharks: either funding an event outright and leaving the students to run it, or funding less of it and helping them put it on.

   2. The aim is to bring in outside ideas about what students want on campus, and to teach planning, marketing and leadership by having those students run the event themselves. It is not intended to add events to SGA's own schedule. Josh has agreed to help.

   3. The logistics are still to be determined. Vice President Keeling said this is a proposal only, asked the senators to discuss it in their group chat, and said it will come back to the senate next week. Questions go to Chief Justice Edwards or any executive member.

   4. Treasurer Hertel said that if it goes ahead the executive team would want to see more senator involvement than executive involvement, because the executive team does not have the time to give.

   5. Dean Chambers said it is an opportunity for senators to put themselves out there and to play a different role in SGA than the one students already see them in.

   6. Vice President Keeling said the senate is free to take the idea or leave it, and that changes and other suggestions are welcome.

Executive Updates

1. Vice President Keeling said President Arguijo sent no updates and will post in the GroupMe if she has any, and that she had none of her own.

2. Senator Landry proposed an activity night at which students could debate and raise general ideas, or things they think the campus needs, with dessert or drinks to make a social event of it.

   1. Vice President Keeling asked her to write the proposal up and email it to the SGA account, with a plan for how it would run and a possible date. It will be shared in the GroupMe and brought to the senate next week. Vice President Keeling will speak to President Arguijo about what is needed to make it happen.

   2. Treasurer Hertel said it is a good idea and recommended inviting faculty members, since students can raise student issues with SGA and administrative and faculty issues with them. She said students have taken proposals to the president's cabinet before, including a debate over whether a scholarship would cover a tuition increase.

3. Secretary Morgan said he had no updates, asked senators to send him any website bugs or ideas that would improve it, and asked those who have not sent their headshots to do so.

4. Treasurer Hertel said she had no updates beyond the financial report. She will receive weekly budget updates from Josh on Fridays, and asked senators to send in their receipts and not to lose them. The budget is always available on the website.

5. PR Chair Nunez is considering a post or a video showing students where the Jet Resource Hub is, and asked anyone with an idea for it to bring it to her directly or through another member.

6. Vice President Keeling said Chief Justice Edwards had nothing to report and will let the senate know if that changes.

New Business

1. Vice President Keeling asked for items of new business and none were raised. The announcements below were made:

2. Announcements

   1. Sloppy Joe's and sand volleyball are on this week's calendar, with root beer floats on the Wednesday. Treasurer Hertel is playing on a volleyball team.

   2. Senators who need volunteer hours were told that help is still needed for Party on the Plaza.

   3. Homecoming is October 9 and 10. Treasurer Hertel said the schedule is already full, so the executive team is not planning to add an SGA event to it and will treat the weekend as one to support and turn out for. Ideas are still welcome.

   4. There is a bonfire on the Friday night and the tailgate is on the Saturday. Most of the executive team expects to be at other tailgates and invited the senators to join them there.

   5. SGA has to order pullovers or polos. Vice President Keeling said she prefers polos, because they can be worn in hot and cold weather, where the pullovers are thick and shrink in the wash. She asked the senators for their preference and for any other ideas.

Adjournment

1. Senator (Phena) Kayode motioned to adjourn and Senator Masem seconded. The vote was by a show of hands.

2. Meeting adjourned.