Black Student Union seeks place in council

By: David Barrios / Senior Staff Writer
Members of the Black Student Union packed into the University Park Student Government Council chambers with questions and proposals at hand for the University-wide Council.

Their main request to instate the BSU as a governing council in SGC-UP was passed after an hour of debate during a March 25 meeting.

During the same meeting, a revised version of the Student Government Association constitution was introduced by Kenasha Paul, the SGC vice president for Biscayne Bay Campus.

A final draft has yet to be agreed on and is tentatively set to be introduced to the ballot for the April 1 and 2 elections.

Among the changes made were the removal of the comptroller from the UWC, to be replaced by the senate speaker pro tempes during UWC meetings.

Proposed changes that were dismissed included an increased cumulative GPA requirement for presidential candidates from 2.5 to 2.75 and the elimination of the 154-day requirement to run as SGC president.

Earlier in the meeting, Denzel Burnside, CEO of DB3 TV, and Bruno Phanord, SGA Student Services chairperson, represented the stance of the BSU as SGC-UP President Arthur J.
Meyer raised questions about reassigning clubs from the Council for Student Organizations to a new governing council.

“What we have here is the old case of a tenant going to court against their landlord. We’re asking the court to not force us to deal with the landlord (CSO) who is not giving us enough funding,” Burnside said during the meeting.

Under its original request, the BSU asked to have organizations including the Pan-African Club, currently under the CSO, falling under them for funding.

“Our organization would seek to unite organizations like the Haitian Students Association and Pan-African Organization, hopefully from both campuses, to be represented under this one banner,” Phanord said in an interview with The Beacon after the meeting.

Meyer supported the BSU being instated as a governing council but felt that restrictions should be required with the move of organizations from the CSO to the new BSU council.

“I just think that we need to evaluate the efficiency of a move like this,” Meyer said.

It was agreed later in the meeting that BSU would become its own governing council.

A future meeting between CSO, the SGA executive branch and the new council would need to be held to determine whether to move related organizations under the new council.
These organizations represent different interests in the student body.

Governing councils in SGA currently include Panther Rage and CSO.

Among the responsibilities of the new governing council would be to fund organizations that would be directly under them, with funding coming directly from SGA; attending executive branch meetings of SGA and reporting directly to them while also establishing a lecture series in the same vein as CSO.

The members of the UWC include the presidents, vice presidents, senate speakers and comptrollers for both campuses. In attendance were Kenasha Paul, SGC-UP Vice President Paige LaPointe, SGC-BBC President Ana Maria Silva, SGC-UP Senate Speaker Jean Roseme and SGC-BBC Comptroller Carlos Becerra-Pineda. Meyer called in while away on business in Tallahassee. SGC-UP Comptroller Robert Chung was unavailable.

The BSU also asked why they did not receive any funding from SGA during the University-wide budget hearings earlier this month. During that meeting, it was determined that the BSU would receive funding during their respective BBC and UP budget hearings.

“I want you to understand that we will most likely be expecting Activities and Services fees increasing. However, we cannot discuss this matter at this meeting because this is not a budget hearing. Remember that the budget committee also has two other members who are not here,” said Silva, who was chairing the meeting.

Silva stated that the BSU could expect more funding at the time of the budget hearings.

Be the first to comment on "Black Student Union seeks place in council"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*