A little more than a week after confirming a majority of its cabinet, the Student Association selected its new chair of the Board of Elections and Membership — a position that involves screening potential candidates for the organization.

Emily Ballard, a sophomore policy studies major and former vice chair of the Public Relations Committee, was approved unanimously by the general assembly. In her new role, Ballard said she’s looking to improve the voting process during meetings by experimenting with only holding elections for new representatives once a month.

“Last session, we really ended up taking up a lot of time in meetings that we could have spent discussing initiatives or other things more about serving the student body,” she said in an interview after the meeting. She said this process would also give members the chance to pick the best candidate for a position if a seat is contested.

SA held its weekly meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the dimly lit Stolkin Auditorium — a much larger venue than the 200-seat Maxwell Auditorium — where it’s usually held. Fewer than 30 members of the organization were in attendance, which SA President Allie Curtis attributed to the unusual meeting time.

Toward the end of the meeting, SA unanimously approved an amendment to the Finance Board’s tier system — a set of classifications that dictate how much funding a student organization is eligible to receive for an event.

The changes, proposed last week, involved increasing the maximum amount of money a tier-one organization could receive from $5,000 to $7,500; changing tier-two groups to be eligible for up to $15,000 in funding instead of $12,000; and making tier-three organizations able to receive up to $30,000 — an increase from $25,000.

SA Comptroller Stephen DeSalvo said the bill was put forward because of persistent carry-over balances of the student activity fee — something he said should be used for events while the students who paid the money are still at Syracuse University.

“What I’ve been finding is that the tier system’s doing its job — it’s protecting the student money that it puts in there — but at the same time it’s leaving some money unused,” he said in an interview after the meeting.

Other business discussed:

• Jenny Choi, chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, discussed a possible partnership program with Onondaga Community College to provide busing to Le Moyne College for graduate exams. She also talked about the possibility of installing a printer on campus for students who have reached their print quota.
• The general assembly unanimously approved all 12of the Finance Board’s recommendations for special programming requests. In total, $15,126.90 for student organizations was approved.
• Lara Alkarim was announced as vice chair of the Student Life Committee, Saywer Cresap for the Student Engagement Committee and Katie O’Brien for the Public Relations Committee.
• About 80.3 percent — or 53 out of 66 seats in the general assembly – are filled, and membership is up since the end of the 56th Session.

Published on January 22, 2013 at 11:54 pm

Contact Dylan: dmsegelb@syr.edu | @dylan_segelbaum