SGA: New Speaker, new legislation
Speaker Pro Tempore leads House meeting, Senate passes three new proposals
Speaker Pro Tempore for the Central Michigan University Student Government Association Aliza Punches leads the House of Reps. meeting at the Bovee University Center on April 7, 2025. (CM Life | Blace Carpenter)
The House of Representatives for the Central Michigan University Student Government Association had a new speaker for its meeting Monday night.
House Speaker Pro Tempore Aliza Punches led the session for the first time of the semester. This is due to the sudden resignation of former Speaker of the House Christian Dunn, who attended the meeting as just a student. He said he hopes for the best with the new speaker.
“I think (meetings) go smoothly," Dunn said. “There are two sessions. I do think Aliza will do great.”
SGA moves forward with three legislation proposals
During the house meeting, SGA President Carolina Hernandez Ruiz introduced a legislative proposal to have classes indicate if course materials are less than $50. She says this will allow students to know if there class is "low cost."
“The whole idea of these resolutions is to provide more transparency when registering for classes,” she said. “It’s to provide more guidance on how much the actual class will cost. … You’re paying for three credits plus all the material cost of the class.”
This was one of three pieces of legislation that were later voted on by the SGA Senate.
Sustainability Committee Chair Kathryn House authored a proposal to change CMU’s bereavement period policy from three to five days.
“I know students here at CMU, who have gone through losing a family member, know how hard it is and know what is like for the school to not necessarily work with them on that,” House said.
In her legislation, she stated that students don’t have enough time under the current policy.
“For many, this not enough time to grieve, travel or support family,” she wrote. “This legislation seeks to extend leave to five days to support students during difficult times better.”
SGA Vice President Aashka Barot authored a proposal to extend the current course drop deadline from one to two weeks.
“So students go into a class, there’s a few icebreakers, a syllabus discussion … that’s not enough time for you to understand whether this is the right class,” Barot said. “For students to get more time to decide, is why we’re extending the deadline.”
While the proposal may extend the deadline to drop classes, students will not be able to add a class in the second week of the semester. She said this may be an issue for international students’ visas, which require them to have 12 or more credits per semester.
“I drop a three credit course, and now I’m at nine credits, that’s not enough for me to be enrolled as a student,” Barot said. “I think that would be the only problem.”
All three pieces of legislation were passed by the Senate. The proposals will be presented and voted on by the House of Representatives during their meeting on April 14.
In other events
Voting has begun for the next SGA executive board. Students can vote on the next SGA president, vice president, treasurer, senators and associate justices on Engage Central. Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Friday.
