Tuesday’s Student Govern-ment Association meeting began with a discussion of the ETSU Giving Campaign.
Vice President Jennifer Berry highlighted the work that both the SGA and the medical school were doing to put forth the program.
Slated to begin on Nov 8, the campaign’s slogan is “Think globally, act locally.”
The campaign is to raise money to provide relief for local charities, which have been hard hit since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack has diverted most donations to New York disaster relief.
The program will raise money for the Samaritan Ministry in Johnson City.
“We decided to have the kick off on (Nov. 8) at the pep rally,” Berry said.
“We want to publicize (the event) now and have the organizations turn in their pledges, and then next week, we’ll set it up outside and open it up for a campuswide thing.”
All campus organizations will be asked to donate money; then the amount they donate will be filled in on a chart.
Then each organization’s name will be listed beside their donated amount.
After that, all individual students will be encouraged to donate, and their donations will be listed in the same way.
After Berry explained the format of the campaign, the Senate moved to approve a basic outline for the Junior Senator program. It details the requirements that the Junior Senators must complete before being eligible for Selections.
Next, the Senate entered into a debate on 606 funding. All of the 606 Committee recommendations passed, except for Alpha Phi Alpha.
The fraternity was requesting money to sponsor a comedy show for Homecoming. Put on every year, the show is a major Homecoming event, and while SGA has always funded it in the past, the amount requested this year was $8,050, compared to last year’s request of $1,500.
The Senate spent nearly an hour debating whether or not to give the program full funding, as several other concerns were also broached.
One of the principle complaints concerned the vulgarity and content of last year’s show.
After viewing a video of comedian Gary Owens, who will perform this year, the Senate expressed concerns about some of his content, which included derogatory comments people with hearing impairments.
The Senate agreed that while the program should be given some money, how much was in question.
“I think the event is important, it deserves more than $2,250 and probably more than $4,000,” Sen. David Lane said.
At the same time, SGA President Chad Reed said, “I think $8,000 is a little extreme.”
However, since the event had already been published as a part of Homecoming, there was a fear that failing to fund the event would leave a gap in the Homecoming schedule.
After all comments and ideas had been considered, the Senate agreed to fund the event at $7,050.
The Senate also approved a full list of committees and heard the first reading of the bill to remove the senate clerk’s position from the code of laws.
Previously, the Senate had passed a constitutional amendment written by Lane to do the same.

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