On Wednesday, November 16, Stetson's Student Government Association (SGA) met at 7:30. This SGA, the main topics of the night were the previously passed bill regarding a change to the current culture credit system and a change for this coming year's housing registry.

To put the bill passed last week on Culture Credit in perspective, the bill was to change the current system from 24 credits gathered anywhere to 4 credits each gathered from events labelled "Personal Growth," "Intellectual Development," and "Global Citizenship" (Stetson University's core values) for a total of 12 credits from these events plus 12 more credits from events of the student's choosing. This change would incorporate Stetson's core values into events and make events more meaningful. This bill is symbolic and does not affect current students (or future students at the moment). However, this bill lets Stetson University know that the students do care about their culture credits and about the school's values.

There is a Culture Credit Committee at Stetson University. Instead of addressing a change in Culture Credit as they were tasked to do, they tabled it for several years. With the passing of the symbolic bill by SGA, the committee has taken Culture Credit off the table and will be discussing SGA's Culture Credit Bill later this month. If they choose to change the Culture Credit system to the system proposed by SGA, current students will not be affected; there is no grandfather clause in the bill. This would only affect future students.

The main event of the evening was the upcoming changes to the housing and residential life room selection process with Dr. Larry Correll-Hughes. Earlier in the year, a survey was conducted over the satisfaction of students in their current living situations and last year's room selection. The feedback focused on the surprise over the number of sophomores living in UVA, the problems with the grouping system (such as a group of three sophomores pulling in a senior and that senior leaving the group after the room was applied for), seniors choosing to live off campus while selecting a room on campus--therefore preventing another student from selecting a room on campus, sophomores being unable to select a room, suite confusions in Emily and Chaudoin, and the lack of knowledge over University Residency Requirement and living off campus.

Some things are not changing this coming year. Students are still required to live on campus for three years. Seniors are allowed to live on campus. Seniors, juniors, and sophomores are allowed to live together. The room selection process will select students by credit hour first then rank them by GPA. For example, a student with 48 credit hours would select a room before a student with 47 credit hours. For two students with 48 credit hours, the student with the higher GPA would select first. There will not be a third level of ranking, such as time on campus (used by other universities) as this would exclude transfer students.

What is changing is the amount of residency requirement education. Housing will be working to make sure students understand who they're grouping with, which room they're applying for, when, and if a student can live off campus. There will be a firm application deadline. Animal friendly housing selection will have a much higher priority than last year, so students with pets will make it into pet-friendly dorms. Some suites in Emily and Chaudoin will be available for selection, but not all. For groups of students signing up for a suite or an apartment, the appointment times will be averaged. Last year, if there was a senior in a group with three sophomores, that group had priority over a group of four juniors. This is no longer the case. If a senior's appointment time is at 9 a.m. and the sophomores' were at 12 p.m., then the appointment time would be averaged to 10:30 a.m instead of staying at 9 a.m. for the entire group. The cancellation timeline will include a larger fee this year too. Any room cancelled up until May 14 will cost $500 dollars for the person who cancelled. After May 14, that price will rise to $1000. This is to discourage seniors who intend to live off campus but apply for a room on campus.

The order of room selection is changing too. This year apartments and suites in Hatter Hall will be going first. Groups of 4 and 3 people will chose first then 2 person groups. After that, the other rooms and suites will go to the remaining 2 person groups.

This brought about the question of who waits to apply. Theoretically, every student could apply and be assigned a bed; housing is willing to place more beds on campus if necessary. However, this will not work; it has been tried before on this campus and on others. It found that students were not happy with their rooming situations. So, who waits? Sophomores are required to live on campus; as the lowest in the student hierarchy, if sophomores are forced to wait, those unable to choose would have to select their rooms in the summer with the incoming freshmen, most likely ending up in Gordis or Smith. Seniors are not required to live on campus. 63-65% of current juniors will stay on campus as seniors. However, most seniors do not know if their off-campus housing is secure during the room selection process. To mediate between this, it was decided that seniors would choose their rooms first on a first-come-first-serve basis with the first 63-65% of seniors selecting their rooms before being locked out. This means that 35-37% of seniors will not be able to select their rooms in January. This was seen as the best outcome in this situation.

The housing website should not crash given the appointment times. Indeed, students will be unable to log in outside of their appointment times. If they miss their appointment, they will have to reschedule with housing. For any questions about applying for housing, moving off campus, or any of the above, please email Dr. Correll-Hughes at lcorrell-hughes@stetson.edu

Other business that took place at SGA was small in comparison. In the current educational buildings (such as Sampson), any single-stall bathroom will be converted into a gender-neutral bathroom. The signs should already be posted on the doors. SGA's Diversity Committee is working on adding these signs in the Hollis Center.

A survey on security cameras will be coming out. SGA's Residential Life Committee will be going around campus and searching for the security cameras. Many of these cameras do not work properly. From here, it will be decided where Stetson needs cameras and whether Stetson needs a new security camera system. A survey will be coming out too. Please, help the SGA by answering the survey.

Also, the vending machines in Sage were restocked. Please let SGA know when they run out and if they aren't restocked in a timely manner.

For any questions or suggestions for SGA, please, stop by the Student Government Association room in the CUB. It is on the right as soon as you enter the CUB. If you would like to sit in on Senate and hear everything in person, Senate takes place in LBC 108 every Wednesday night at 7:30. There will not be Senate next Wednesday due to the Thanksgiving break.