As the fall semester comes to an end, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) is already looking ahead, preparing to kick off the spring semester with a variety of initiatives and festive events. Their focus will be on the Special Budgetary Groups (SBGs) and of course, Michigan Tech’s Winter Carnival. Events put on by USG and partners are meant to bring the community to campus and keep students in mind.
Winter Carnival is always a popular Tech tradition, and to add on to the festivities, USG plans on partnering with the Inter-Residence Housing Council (IRHC) to provide entertainment and warmth during Carnival. “…Now that we have a completely full body, we’re going to be trying to split up our group and make it partially for mini golf, partially for what we do with Crossing Guard and then partially for something else on campus,” said USG Treasurer David Reeves. In previous years, USG has set up an indoor mini golf course for students to test their putting skills, which has always been a hit, so this year they have plans to ramp up this activity. Beyond the mini golf course, USG is involved in student safety during Winter Carnival with the crossing guard.
The spring semester also marks the start of budget hearings for student organisations on campus. It’s a 62-hour process in which the committee meets with all 200+ registered student organisations (RSOs). Conner Skalitzky, USG Vice President, explained, “Each one gets a hard 10 minutes, because if all of them get 11 minutes, that’s another few hours added to our schedule.” This year also includes a bi-annual review of the Special Budgetary Groups. “We look forward to those hearings – we have two new groups applying to be SBGs, which is pretty awesome,” Skalitzky said. The new applicants for this cycle are the Huskies Pep Band and the Mont Ripley Ski Patrol.
USG plans on making adjustments to its policies on food funding for RSOs. “…Before we could only fund food if it was culturally significant, but we want to expand that to other opportunities that are not inherently cultural. So we have a direct artistic educational or cultural experience rule that’s under review right now and that will allow for food and giveaways.” said Reeves. This will allow a little more flexibility to RSOs looking to put together events involving food items.
