SRA Nov. 11 meeting highlights

Photo C/O Kyle West

The McMaster Students Union Student Representative Assembly held their most recent meeting on Nov. 11 in Gilmour Hall. Here are some key items that were discussed.[spacer height="20px"]

• The health science caucus reported on their goal of renovating the Health Sciences Library to expand student space in the Health Sciences Library. They are also lobbying to extend Saturday hours for HSL. The representatives are hoping to accomplish these tasks by the 2019 summer term and will be organizing petitioning events this or next week to gather support from students.
• Elections department chief returning officer Uwais Patel discussed the unofficial results of the SRA October by-election, which did not face any major technical challenges. Students voted in David Benzon for kinesiology representative and Cole Reesor as the new commerce representative. Kinesiology voter turnout was 39.4 per cent, while commerce turnout was at just 9.3 per cent. Patel stated that the reason behind the low commerce turnout was likely the lack of active campaigning among most candidates.
• There were delegations from McMaster Solar Car and Engineers Without Borders. There was concern from SRA members that there is a lack of faculty representation in Engineers Without Borders as the vast majority of students involved are in engineering. However, the assembly mainly supported the work of the club, which is open to all students.
• The finance committee recently closed the idea submission period for the Student Life Enhancement Fund, which supports student-submitted ideas aimed at improving the McMaster community infrastructurally. They have begun preparing to promote the voting period, which runs throughout January and February.
• The MSU operations coordinator Maddison Hampel prepared a memo for the executive board on forming a committee to review general concerns of MSU part-time employees. However, there was debate over the current memo. A revised version is expected to be presented at a later time.
• The SRA voted to keep MSU seats on various awards committees open until next meeting as caucus leaders admitted they did not advertise the seats to their constituents. SRA arts and science representative Tasneem Warwani and SRA social sciences representative Shemar Hackett advocated for increased engagement with students on these available positions.
• An MSU elections committee seat was open and closed.

[spacer height="20px"]The next SRA meeting will be held on Nov. 25 at 5 p.m. in Gilmour Hall room 111.

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