The Rocky Mountain Collegian

The senate, last night, passed a bill adding seven Student Organization Cabinets to the Student Government Association's constitution.

The bill, written and presented by the SGA Executive Board, provides for the implementation of a second segment of the legislative branch. This new branch will allow chartered student organizations (CSOs) unbiased representation in the SGA.

The newly created cabinets will serve a function similar to the House of Governors, which consisted of the chief officers of all the chartered student organizations on campus, and was abolished in 2003.

However, the need for some form of CSO representation within the SGA has led to the innovation of Student Organization Cabinets. It was noted in the bill that CSOs "constitute a substantial voice on this campus" and that issues of CSOs "regularly come before the senate, but without a formal process or outlet."

The seven Student Organization Cabinets include cabinets for Major Programming Bodies, Club Sports Organizations, Academic Organizations, Entertainment Organizations, Service and Faith Based Organizations, Cultural and Diversity Organizations, and Social Justice and Political Organizations. Each cabinet will consist of a delegate from each CSO appointed by the president of that club.

A member of SGA External Affairs will serve as the chair of each cabinet and individual cabinets will meet at least once monthly throughout the semester.

Also discussed was a report on the Technology Advisory Committee, presented by International Student Federation President Chidi Ogbonna. Ogbonna is the only student representative on the computer requirement task force, a group designed to research the benefits and problems of requiring all incoming freshmen to purchase the same laptop through SLU. Ogbonna asked the SGA representatives for their opinions on the possibility of this in the future. Representatives expressed concern over the additional cost and the standardization of computers, among other things.

A bill for the allocation of $2,054 in spot funding for the Hispanic American Leadership Organization (HALO) of SLU was passed. HALO requested the funding to enable the group to purchase salsa lessons and letter heads, to give the group startup money to throw a fundraiser and to invite a hispanic speaker to come to SLU.

The Committee for Internal Affairs also presented and passed legislation to confirm and seat four new senators for the 2004-2005 school year.

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