This week Cardinal Impact will run its first Student Government Association meeting since taking office last Wednesday, and already slate members have wasted no time getting acclimated to their new roles.
Still early in the transitioning process, the recently appointed SGA leaders have focused their initial efforts filling cabinet positions and setting a time frame to accomplish their platform points. Cardinal Impact President Beth Cahill said the slate will use a three-tier system to outline its objectives, which they ultimately hope will hold them more accountable.
Cahill admits the slate has already faced its share of adversity, but she said it helps having SGA adviser and Student Life Director Lynda Wiley as a support beam. All members of Cardinal Impact have varying personal experience previously working with Wiley, which Cahill said allows everyone to skip introductions and get right to work.
"I think we're all kind of stressed out a little bit, and worried about little aspects of everything, but it makes it easier to approach her and tell her that because there is a friendship and working relationship there already," Cahill said.
Before taking office, Cardinal Impact conducted its first official order of business when they agreed to pay $1,000 to support the women's basketball fan bus to Bowling Green, Ky., for Sunday's first-round NCAA matchup against the University of Tennessee.
Moving forward, Vice President Mandy Mills said there are several platform points the slate hopes to accomplish before semester's end.
In the immediate future, Mills said she will pursue certain issues which may require the entire term to accomplish. For example, during campaigning Mills said students took a high level of interest in Cardinal Impact's platform point to open restricted lots from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. Given the high amount of enthusiasm that issue drew from students, Mills said she hopes to make the matter an instant priority.
The slate also hopes to finalize its three-tier system this week and potentially appoint all seven executive cabinet members at Wednesday's SGA meeting. Not all positions may be filled by that time, but Cahill said she was excited with the caliber of candidates thus far.
Cardinal Impact also intends on focusing much of its efforts becoming more visible throughout campus. By filling Senate seats as quickly as possible, SGA Secretary Carson Lance said he feels SGA can instantly increase its impact on campus.
"We need to target campus more and have that full Senate," Lance said. "In a cool world, we would have students turned down for Senate because there are more students interested than we have positions."
Lance said he hopes to also see accountability increase among senators as they take office. By doing so, he said it would dramatically lighten the workload on Cardinal Impact.
"We are going to be utilizing our cabinet and the respective committee and caucus chairs to get us more information so they can actually have a report for us every time at Senate," Lance said. "We want them to have a report for us every freaking week so it seems like they're actually doing their job."
Aside from filling senate and campus committees, Cahill said the slate intends on visiting many of the on-campus activities put on by organizations - particularly those co-sponsored by SGA.
"I think we just want to go out to events and get our faces out there more," Cahill said. "We want to show we care about what's going on around campus."
SGA Treasurer Nick Turner said he is still transitioning with former treasurer Moses Jones to finalize the budget, but the slate all agreed to possibly increasing the $15,000 co-sponsorship allotment after Campus Alliance surpassed that amount last term.
"We're just going through the budget, seeing what we can change," Turner said. "We may increase co-sponsorship, but we're not yet certain."
While the focus lies on the semester at hand, Cardinal Impact members admitted they look forward to the summer. Mills said the summer will be their free time to get much of their research and phone calls in to administrators.
"Summer is going to be a huge asset to us - it'll be our free time," Mills said.
Wednesday's SGA meeting will take place in Cardinal Hall at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center at 3:15 p.m.
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