Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of SGA SGA President Tim Roberts and Vice President Christina Genualdi are ready to tackle the upcoming school year. [Click to enlarge]

The University of West Florida’s Student Government Association kicked off its first session Aug. 26 by swearing in appointed senators and cabinet members and hearing about the latest parking changes.

The meeting opened with a question and answer session with John Chism, parking service director, about the recently made changes to the campus parking system. Several senators voiced their concerns about the lack of student parking spaces.

“The problem on campus is the ‘lack of parking right in front of my building’, but there’s plenty of spaces on the campus,” Chism said.

Chism had originally hoped to reserve Parking Lot H in front of the Commons exclusively for faculty and designate other lots, including Lot K, located behing the Commons , as commuter parking. He said doing so would have created a larger volume of student parking closer to the center of campus. Instead, the implemented plan added only 120 commuter parking spots in Lot H.

“You would get more student parking here, you’d consolidate your staff parking, and everyone would get more than they had,” Chism said. “No other business in the world puts its employees right by the door. You gotta put your customers right by the door.”

Originally on the SGA agenda for Friday was the Constituency Bill co-authored by SGA President Tim Roberts and John Melvin, director of student lobbying.

The bill’s purpose is to increase the representation of the student body within UWF’s SGA. The bill establishes for eight new constituency groups representing the College of Arts and Science, the College of Professional Studies, the College of Business, graduate students, greek affairs, athletics and recreation, student activities registered student organizations, and resident students.

“Right now the way the senate is organized is an open election system where any student can run.” And its not designated by what college you’re in or what constituency you represent,” Roberts said. “But what the Constituency Bill would do is put more accountability on the senators to represent everyone on campus.”

Each constituency would be represented by three senators, one each from the Academic, Finance, and Student Relations committees. Students could share their problems and concerns with their elected representatives. The representatives would then be required to report important information regarding their constituencies to the senate. It was decided that voting on the bill would be put off for a week, giving the senators time to read over and fine-tune the bill within their committees.

The SGA also has a new faculty advisor, Michael Jasek, the assistant dean of students. Jasek replaced Rick Barth who’s now director of admissions. As the advisor, Jasek sits in on meetings and makes sure the SGA follows policy set by the University.

“My goal is for them to actually be the voice of the students out on the campus that elected them,” Jasek said, of the SGA. Jasek said that he wanted issues that are important to UWF students to actually be discussed by the senate.

SGA meetings are held every Friday at 1:30 p.m. in the University Commons Great Hall. The student body is always welcomed to attend the meetings and voice their opinions.

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