Eliyahu Gasson and Megan Trotter | Opinions Editor and News Editor
The Duquesne University Student Government Association held its first meeting Wednesday night in The Africa Room.
The first meeting served as an opportunity for the SGA executive board to introduce themselves to the senators-at-large as well as share what they had been working on leading up to the meeting.
First to present was Vice President of Communications Mary Paternoster, who shared her recent activity on SGA’s social media.
She was followed by Vice President of Academic Affairs Braden Niles.
“The main thing I would relay to senators and senators-at-large is that we just launched something called Degree Planner,” he said.
Degree Planner is a degree-audit system that Duquesne is now using to help students to see how completed and planned coursework directly applies to the specific requirements of their program. This will help students better plan their studies to prepare their credits and experience for graduation.
“The thinking behind this was that we need to free up time for our success coaches to have a more holistic approach beyond just scheduling,” Niles said.
Degree Planner is being rolled out gradually school-by-school. The program will start with the School of Nursing and the A.J. Palumbo School of Business on Sept. 9 before being applied to the school of Education on Sept. 16 and the school of Liberal Arts on Sept. 23.
During the meeting, officials indicated that in mid-May the Music, Health Sciences, Graduate Nursing, Pharmacy, Science and Engineering and Law schools would also begin utilizing Degree Planner.
SGA President Faith Cook shared how she got an early start to her first semester as president.
“Over the summer I worked to approve the club sports funding this year. So last year if you’re familiar, there was a new endowment for club sports at Duquesne and so each year there’s gonna be money appropriated now to club sports funding,” Cook said.
Since her summer meeting with Duquesne’s Director of Recreation, Cook said she got a final budget approved.
SGA provided The Duke with an informal version of the budget which includes a starting amount of a little over $22,000. Cook said as the year continues the budget will further indicate how money is appropriated.
Vice President of Finance Sean Marshall followed Niles’s presentation. Marshall expressed a desire to grow the number of businesses offering discounts to Duquesne students.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunity that we can get student discounts, whether that’s the Market Square or The Strip District or wherever anyone else has input,” Marshall said.
Next was Vice President of Student Life Braily Frankhouser, who announced the date for the annual Night of Lights, where Duquesne closes off Academic Walk for students to gather at an official holiday lights ceremony. This year’s festivities will take place on Nov. 8.
Frankhouser also reminded attendees that students should begin utilizing the TransLoc Rider app, which lets you always know where your bus is located, and can be used to track Duquesne specific transportation like the loop shuttles.
Campus Minister, Linda Donovan, also mentioned a new app available to Duquesne students. The app is called “Cork” and allows students easy access to Campus Link.
In closing, Cook discussed the process for electing senators during next week’s meeting.
Any student is considered to be a senator-at-large. To be considered for a senator position, senators-at-large are required to attend at least two SGA meetings and fill out a petition to apply for the roll.
“There is this senator petition form on Campus Link where after this meeting today, you can go on there and fill it out if you would like to be a senator,” Cook said. “I know sometimes Campus Link can be a little confusing and I would love to help.”
Next week’s meeting will take place Wednesday at 5 p.m. in the SGA office on the first floor of the Student Union.