Raeanne Raccagno
Staff Writer
The College’s Student Government held its first general body meeting on Sept. 4, hearing presentations on TCNJ Votes! and a new funding model, performing their swearing-in ceremony and informing interested students about the organization.
Jared Williams, SG’s executive president, opened the meeting with the hallowed crack of the gavel, greeting everyone and reminding them how important the general body is to SG.
“We really do just want to stress how important all of you are,” said Williams. “We really want this to be an opportunity for you all to be extremely involved. General body truly is led by all of you.”
Avani Rana, co-advisor of SG, and Katie Kahn, Bonners Scholars program manager, led a presentation about TCNJ Votes! According to its website, TCNJ Votes! is the College’s enterprise to increase voter registration and participation among students in upcoming elections.
Rana explained at the general body meeting how their partnership with SG to get students to pledge to vote and SG’s active role in creating engagement across campus is crucial to TCNJ Votes!.
Sarah Kasziba-O’Rahilly, TCNJ Votes! chair and SG member, and Aria Chalileh, vice president for governmental affairs and SG’s head of TCNJ Votes!, will be working alongside Rana and Kahn. Kasziba-O’Rahilly and other voting fellows will be tabling on campus and providing information about registering to vote, mail-in ballots, changing your registration or figuring out how to vote while away from home.
TCNJ Votes! will be holding non-partisan events leading up to the presidential election. “We don't want you to vote one way or another. Our plan is just to have you think about what issues and concerns are important to you,” said Rana.
The first event co-hosted with the School of the Arts and Communication was a debate watch party on Sept. 10, from 8-11 p.m. in the Kendall Hall TV Studio. A full list of their events is available on TCNJ Votes! website which is updated daily.
Another goal of the College’s voting movement is to win the All in NJ Campus Voting Challenge, a nonpartisan competition between higher education institutions where the winning institution receives a trophy for having the most voter participation. The College has been the reigning winner for the past three years.
Danny Wilson, vice president for finance, presented the Student Government’s new funding model. Wilson also acts as the SG representative for the Student Finance Board.
He functions as a liaison between SG and SFB, advocating funding requests brought to SFB by different SG cohorts. There are four cohorts within SG: cabinet, class council, senators and delegates.
Wilson explained how SG can request up to $35,000, with each cohort promised $1,015 or 2.9% of their budget, and the remaining 65.2% being saved for the reserve funds.
Cohorts can request more than $1,015 but must go through a different process this academic year. To request more money, the cohort must tap into reserve funds if approved by the Finance Committee. The committee, an internal SG panel of general body members, will decide in a majority vote whether or not to approve the request.
Money used to be promised to cohorts through need, but “this allows for cohorts to have more budgetary freedom in terms of the events they want to plan because you can request as much as you want or as low as you want,” Wilson said.
Williams led the swearing-in ceremony for all newly elected officers, 13 students were sworn in.
During the open floor agenda, Kevin Janas, alternate student trustee, addressed delegates interested in the upcoming SG election on Sept. 19. He reminded students looking to run that the required paperwork is due on Sept. 9 and campaigning will begin Sept. 12.
Class council, senator and cabinet members introduced themselves while giving their reports and making committee announcements. The general body also went through governance reports, and there was no new or old business.
After reports, SG gave “mad props,” which is an opportunity for members to give a shout-out to each other and “spread some of that SG love,” according to Williams.
There was no closed session, and a motion to adjourn was made and passed to end the general body meeting.
Editor’s note: One of The Signal’s news editors, Kate Zydor, is Student Government’s Vice President for Student Services. She does not assist with writing or editing stories about Student Government.
