The Bucknell Student Government reconvened for their weekly Congress meetings to listen to two guest speakers and pass three resolutions.

Before calling the meeting to order, members listened to guest speakers Margot Vigeant and Scott Rosevear, co-acting presidents during President John Bravman’s sabbatical. They came to discuss a critical alteration in summer student research endeavors. 

Due to a new interpretation of a federal law, undergraduate summer research will not be grant-based, but students will be compensated for their tasks. Both Vigeant and Rosevear took questions from members interested in how the new payroll system will work. 

Additionally, each acting president made the BSG aware that a slight alteration in student registration will be made. Normally, when incoming first-year students choose their foundation seminars, they are presented with an overwhelming number of choices. Instead, to make the process easier, the registration portals will have themes for students with a set of associated foundation courses to narrow their interests.   

BSG members sent in questions before they came on Sunday to talk, to which both Vigeant and Rosevear attempted to answer. Many of the questions arose about increasing transparency and trust, especially after the abrupt notification of tuition increase. Rosevear mentioned the Board of Trustees was very critical of raising tuition, though many of the programs at Bucknell “cost money to do and the tuition is revenue to continue to invest.”Other topics that were asked revolve around President Bravman’s participation in commencement ceremonies and how to properly streamline communication between the higher-ups and Bucknell Student Government.

After the co-acting presidents finished and left, the meeting was called to order with the weekly roll call, approval of the previous week’s minutes, snaps and executive board members going over their updates. 

Members quickly sped through their old business by approving a bylaw to their Constitution regarding executive positions.

After that, they went on to the new business of the meeting. The first resolution passed allowed a permanent increase of the unity event budget by $1000. The second resolution funded coffee, hot chocolate and munchkins for a DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) tabling event, increasing the budget up to $150. Both resolutions passed unanimously. 

The third resolution consisted of a bylaw amendment by Vice President of Operations Eliza Morris to remove gendered pronouns from all resolutions. Instead of “he” or “she”, the pronouns would be “they”, “them” and “their”. Because this is a bylaw amendment, members voted unanimously to table the amendment and will vote on approving it likely next week.

After new business was taken care of, each committee chair and class president provided updates and upcoming events taking place that they will be involved in. 

The next BSG meeting will be on Sunday, March 3, 2024, at 4PM.