Student Government had its fifth meeting for the semester on Sept. 27. SG currently has $47,345.84 in its account.
The first order of business was a presentation given by Dr. Greg Cant, university president. Over the last year, Cant has led a team with the interest of changing the mission statement and values of the university, which have not changed in over 15 years.
This process has been worked on since fall of 2022 and took about six months to come with a full mission statement. He came to present it to SG before showing it to the whole student body. The statement was changed to put more emphasis on the empowerment of students and take away emphasis from the classroom from teaching to a more modern take of teaching for new and upcoming generations.
The new statement also put more emphasis on the school as a university with graduate students as well as undergraduate students. This also came with changes to the values of the school, turning the old five into seven.
The second order of business was a fund request from the Wilkes Wilkes Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). GSA serves the campus community in the promotion of conversation and of the rights for all people that may identify outside of heterosexual. The presentation was given by Morgan Steiner, junior political science student. The request is for GSA and its guests to be able to attend the Mid Atlantic LGBTQ+ conference being held Nov. 3-5 in Bloomsburg, Pa.
The conference would help students send work for the conference in the form of papers, projects and workshops. It also gives many of the members a chance in order to present formally and gain that experience. The request was for $1,000 and the vote was passed for the full amount.
The third order of business was a revision of the Programming Board Constitution presented by club president, senior Kim Wheeler. This is the first time the constitution was updated since 2016. This was to cover things such as name changes, revisions to job titles, voting processes, new rules and includes a change to the mission statement.
The fifth order of business was a presentation for Casino Week, presented by Jaci Bickel. This was a week one of two for the fund request. Casino Week, formerly Casino Night, has been a tradition at Wilkes for years. The presentation was given with activities taking place over five days for the week of Nov. 6-10. However, most of the plans presented will be changed as a vote was taken and SG decided to scale back Casino Week, back to Casino Night. This request will be worked on and voted on next week.
The final order of business was an internal presentation given by Michael Nowak, senior electrical engineering student and vice president of SG. This was for a fall event getaway for members of the student community. The trip would see them travel to Roba’s farms, the Taste of Autumn and a scavenger hunt. This would occur over fall break from Oct. 16-20 and give many students a chance to have an activity to break up the semester as it comes right before midterms. The cost and fund request for this trip went down from $3,600 to $2,800. This was voted on and approved for the full amount.
SG will meet again on Oct. 4.