North Texas Daily

The Student Government Association senate tabled the appointment of Deana Ayers as Vice President at this semester’s first meeting, but confirmed other appointments and discussed plans to promote inclusivity, preparations for Sexual Assault Month, increasing the student minimum wage rate and expanding the communications team.

SGA was unable to confirm Ayers as vice president due to senator attendance. Two-thirds of the senate must vote yes to confirm a vice president appointee, and with 27 seated senators total and only 17 in attendance, it would be impossible to reach the two-thirds required.

“I’m pretty disappointed,” Ayers said. “I was really looking forward to actually being able to put my name on the things that I’ve been doing for the mast month. I’m just excited for the chance to actually talk about what I’ve been doing and why I deserve to be in this position rather than being the appointee.”

The Senate will not be able to confirm Ayers next week either unless a special session is called, as there will be a State of the Student Body address in place of their regular meeting.

The senate was able to confirm other positions, however. Jennifer Moyers was confirmed as Secretary of the Senate, Fatim Karamoko was confirmed as the Chief of Staff and Brooke Roberson was confirmed as the Student Allocations Director and Raupe Travel Grant Director.

“I’m very ecstatic about [being confirmed] because I think this is a great position for me to let other students, especially black students on campus, know what all SGA does for them and the resources they have within SGA,” Roberson said.

Following the evening’s confirmations, the executive officers gave reports on what they plan to accomplish this semester. President Yolian Ogbu said she is creating a task force to ensure UNT fulfills SGA’s demands following the resignation of Assistant General Counsel Caitlin Sewell.

“We’re trying to put together a team of students to be in charge of following up on all the demands we made in November,” Ogbu said. “Every single demand we made requires constant communication with different departments and administrators. I don’t want to be the one person in charge because this is a student-led effort. I think we need the entire community to be a part of this conversation.”

Strategic Planning Director Brightyn Patterson also reported to the senate that she has started planning for Sexual Assault week from March 23 to 27 and Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April.

“We want to have a week for everyone to get geared up and into that month,” Patterson said. “We’re going to be partnering with a lot of organizations and we’re still brainstorming events.”

Patterson also reported an update in SGA’s efforts to increase the minimum wage for student employees.

“We are going to be reaching out to UNT Dallas and UNT Health Science Center,” Patterson said. “We’re going to try and make it a UNT System issue rather than just a UNT issue because I think we’ll get more traction that way.”

Communications Director Noah Hutchinson reported he wants to expand SGA’s communication team. Currently, Hutchinson is the only person performing communications duties for SGA.

“I just kind of do all the heavy lifting and carrying through what the team wants,” Hutchinson said. “Instead of just me being a one-person agency and doing everything from advertising, public relations, marketing and social media, I’ll have a team of 10 to 12 people to brainstorm and do little things here and there.”

The Senate also passed a new budget for the semester and the Memorandum of Understanding, a regularly-signed document acknowledging the separate but cooperative relationship between SGA and the Graduate Student Council after their separation in 2016.

Featured Image: Senators discuss the SGA budget during first meeting of the year on Jan. 23, 2020. Image by John Anderson