The Student Government Association (SGA) started the April 3 meeting with topic proposals for the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). QEP Director Dr. McRae Amoss informed the Senate that the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) now has new expectations when reaffirming universities for accreditation. According to Amoss, the QEP is "a set of changes or actions that the university will implement with the aim of improving some specific student learning outcomes in a particular area of student learning." Amos said President Patrick Finnegan appointed a QEP Topic Committee consisting of faculty divided into subcommittees, with each subcommittee developing a topic proposal for the plan. The plan is to identify a topic this year, develop it next year and implement it in five to six years.
The four topic proposals, which were identified by members of the subcommittees and described briefly to the Senate, were "Making Internships Work for Students," "Developing the Citizen Leader through Global Diversity," "Creating Knowledge in the 21st Century: Citizen Leaders Engaging in Undergraduate Research," and "Active Citizen Leadership in a Culturally Diverse World." One senator brought up concerns about the fact the research topic name excluded graduate students. Amoss said while the QEP will focus primarily on undergraduate research, the committee will change that particular part of the name to "student" as opposed to simply "undergraduate."
Students can find in-depth descriptions of the topics on longwood.edu under the "SACS Reaffirmation 2014" tab. Amoss said students should expect a survey concerning the QEP in about a week. Following the introduction of the QEP Topic proposals, the SGA allocated $445 to Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority for their northeast conference. The rights to play "Waterwalk," the film based on Assistant Professor of English Dr. Steven Faulkner's book, on campus costs $500, and the SGA granted this amount to Cook-Cole Student Advisory Board to do so.
The SGA then allocated $2,570.55 to Lambda Pi Eta to give four communication studies seniors the opportunity to present their senior theses at a conference. During open forum, one senator expressed concerns about lack of organization and resulting chaos in some areas of last Saturday's Big Event. Sen. Bobby Smith said this unfortunately occurred because about 20 job site leaders did not show up, and Treasurer Brian Reid added that approximately 20 job sites canceled at the last minute. Reid said he would report to the Big Event Executive Board so the event can be improved in those areas next year.
Several senators raised concerns about the fact that campus radio station WMLU does not always show up for events. President Brandon Fry advised senators to email WMLU's business manager about these concerns. Auditor Sara Bendrick said she personally did and the station was apologetic and said they would reschedule. Following open forum, Reid reviewed the remaining budget for the 2012-2013 academic year, and after several revisions, the SGA approved the overall budget, this being the second meeting in which it was reviewed.
SGA elections for the upcoming academic year will take place from April 9-13 on Blackboard. The next SGA meeting will be on Tuesday, April 10 in the Lankford Student Union BC Rooms.
