Student Government Association (SGA) senator Jake Biller opened Wednesday’s senate meeting at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center on a festive note.
“I motion to suspend the rules so we can sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to our wonderful advisor, Jim Hague,” Biller said.
Following the senate’s rendition of the song, the senate moved into its usual business, this week joined by Deb Howell, assistant director of the Office of Information Security Services.
Howell spoke to the senate about Ball State’s efforts to combat hacking, email “spoofing” and phishing. She also led an activity with the senators during which the senators activated two-factor authentication for their Ball State accounts.
“We have had incidents where individuals go out and fall for phishing scams and lose money,” Howell said. “We had an incoming graduate student who lost $3,000 for falling for these.”
According to Ball State’s website, two-factor authentication protects users’ accounts from fraud and scams by providing an additional layer of security, even if the user falls for the scam.
Following her presentation, SGA Vice President Cameron DeBlasio introduced the senate to two new pieces of legislation: a resolution on excused absences and an amendment to the bylaws and constitution of SGA on the position of president pro tempore.
The new resolution, authored by senators Gina Esposito, Jake Biller and Andy Hoffman, calls on the university’s administration to change its policy on excused absences for students participating in competitions or other events with university-recognized organizations.
Esposito said, as a member of the debate team, she and other students have to ask for their professors’ permission to miss the class. She said the current university travel forms do not include excused absences, making students’ travel plans less flexible.
The resolution also states that currently, faculty have individual say over excused absences, but “responsibility will still fall on the student to make up any class work they miss in a manner worked out between the student and faculty.”
After the resolution was introduced, DeBlasio read the new amendment, which was authored by Miryam Bevelle, Dylan Lewandowski and Hoffman.
The amendment looks to change the current rules concerning the qualifications for candidates running for president pro tempore. Currently, only senators are permitted to run for the position, but the amendment would allow executive slate members and incumbent president pro tempores to run.
Current SGA President Pro Tempore Carter Gallagher said he’s “not totally sold” on the idea of executive slate members running for the position.
“I think it's important that the pro tempore has not just senate experience, but also has recently served in the senate,” Gallagher said. “Some of the really important things coming into this position in the beginning of this year was having personal relationships with a lot of the senators [and] a lot of the leaders in this group already. I think what this legislation does is it sort of takes away that as a necessity.”
However, he said he “[didn’t] necessarily think that's always a bad thing” in regards to executive slate members seeking the office, adding that it could lead to younger candidates running for the position if the amendment passes.
The senate will vote on the resolution and amendment next week.
Contact John Lynch with comments at jplynch@bsu.edu or on Twitter @WritesLynch.
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