by Joe Adgie

The SGA continued to fill its ranks on a night that also saw a refresher course on parliamentary procedure and the SGA fumbling on a decision to support the upcoming Mr. VSU pageant.

In total, 20 new members of the SGA and one returning member, between the legislative and judicial branches, were sworn in on Monday night’s weekly meeting including two graduate students, a student from Kazakhstan and two transfer students.

These include 11 hopefuls who received the most votes in last week’s freshman elections. 10 seats were available for freshmen, but there was a tie for 10^th between LaDaisha Wilson and Breionna Henry.

Matt Lovelace, one of the two new graduate senators, explained why he wanted to join the SGA.

“Graduate students don’t really have a voice on this campus,” Lovelace said. “We do run your campus, for the most part. Graduate students are a huge portion of the population here. We have over 2,000 graduate students and very little representation.”

One returning member of SGA is Micah Howell, who ran unsuccessfully for the comptroller’s seat during the last election. Howell expressed intent to improve the rules of SGA elections, rules that came into question after the controversial elections last year.

“A lot went on last year during our elections,” Howell said. “I really would hate for anybody to go through that again.”

The SGA also had some confusion late in the meeting when trying to figure out whether or not to support the upcoming Mr. VSU pageant.

The decision about whether to actually support the event or not was proposed to be tabled by senator Valencia Warren. The proposal would then be heard at a meeting of the PR committee on Sept. 18, a proposal that was met with disapproval from new senator Tamera Dunn.

“Right now, it sounds like we’re not willing to say what we’re to give to our presenter, and that’s making him wait another nine days,” Dunn said.

Responding to Dunn, Heather Washington, senior senator, explained the proposal.

“We’re going to move to assist him, but the specifics are going to be outlined in the second meeting,” Washington said.

Due to the broadness of the initial proposal, Warren was unsure if the tabling was for the upcoming PR meeting, or for the next SGA meeting. The presenter of the Mr. VSU proposal, Jeremiah Wiggins, demanded a yes-or-no answer right then and there, which he got, with the SGA voting unanimously in favor of supporting the pageant.

Lovelace cleared up confusion about the tabling proposal by moving that the responsibilities regarding the Mr. VSU pageant would be delegated to the PR committee. This too received a unanimous “yes” vote.