The Student Government Association swore in their first-year senators and filled three senate seats during their second meeting of the year.

Marlena Beard, a first-year political science major from Chicago, was one of the sworn in senators. She said she chose to join SGA because of how engaged they are with the community.

“My goal was to unite people from different cultures and communities together and have fun on campus,” Beard said.

During the meeting, Lee Wells with Jonesboro Economical Transit (JET) came to talk to the senators about campus transportation. SGA President Jake Williams, a junior business major from Piggott, Arkansas, focused on transportation during his campaign last semester.

Williams said SGA’s first order of business for the semester is helping the JET services and new trolleys around campus. 

“The next for sure is finding issues, finding different things that could be advanced within the trolley systems. Really having SGA be the core of change for such a big thing on campus,” Williams said. “Also, just having the senate be a positive space of growth and supporting people to make a change.”

SGA Vice President, Kate Malone, a junior strategic communications major from Germantown, Tennessee said what the staff wants to accomplish this year is their campaign points, moving on towards financial transparency after hitting the transportation point with the new trolleys.

“We also are continuing looking for collaboration across campus. Hosting meetings for all different organizations to come,” Malone said. “ We’re all on the same page, and I think that’s kind of where we’re at right now.”

A look ahead towards the next meeting was given with a new scholarship resolution being mentioned by Malone and scholarship commissioner Reese McCallum.

“We’ve been talking about the mental health scholarship,” Malone said. “We’re super excited to talk about those, especially during suicide awareness month.” 

After the meeting, both the new and the old senators participated in a SGA summit.

Malone said the summit was held to give basic information to the new senators and serve as a refresher for the older members.

“Let’s see what we can change on campus this year and do for the betterment of all students,” Williams said during his meeting report.

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