Michigan Tech’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) met on Sept. 7 and discussed a number of community events and changes occurring at Tech ranging from K-Day, to reducing fraternity GPA requirements to changing funding requests for Registered Student Organizations.
Citing safety concerns and rain, K-Day was moved from its usual spot at Centennial Park in Chassell to the indoor location at the SDC, causing some space restrictions. Incoming students were not able to experience MTU Paintball Club’s paintball excursions or see the Four Wheelers of Michigan Tech’s mud trucks, but the dunk tank and catering services were still available.
RSOs were given preference over Enterprise groups this year due to limited table space, since K-Day is held mainly for new students to interact with RSOs and not for Enterprise recruitment.
Returning this year to the Parade of Nations on Sept. 17th at 11 a.m. is the float contest as well as the international food booths at the Multicultural Festival held at Dee Stadium.
The float contest theme for the 33rd Parade of Nations focuses on global unity, rallying under the slogan “The World is One.” First place in the contest will receive $300, second place, $200, and third place, $100, with up to $100 in grant funding to build a float. Festivities at Dee Stadium will include the international food booths for take-out only.
USG listed the most recent numbers for re-registration for Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) in their agenda with the total RSO president training completion at 40% and other eboard positions at 20%. All RSOs must complete this re-registration process by September 28th in order to maintain their USG Student Activity Funding and RSO Status, otherwise knocking their returning RSO status back to a new RSO.
More on the RSO funding front, USG treasurer Emily Ruf revised the current request for funding process to make acquiring funds more intuitive and user-friendly for RSOs by using the Student Involvement Link, with one trade-off.
Requests can be made in the form of a Reimbursement, Advancement or Account Use Approval, the latter of the three being used for inter-departmental purchases within MTU. The trade-off to this new system is that RSOs must have a second eboard member verify the request for funds, potentially delaying a request for funding if an RSO does not have another eboard member available.
Also included in USG’s agenda was its liaison report concerning the Interfraternity Council recently passed proposals lowering the GPA requirements of students in greek life organizations. Interfraternity Council representative for Sigma Phi Epsilon Steven Sweet elaborated, “They also decreased the GPA for guys coming in from highschool from 3.0 to 2.7.” However, chapter GPA requirements were increased from 2.5 to 2.6.
