Tuesday’s executive cabinet meeting, the last before Student Government elections begin, focused on cabinet members’ plans, primarily with the ongoing Be-YOU-tiful week event.
Before the cabinet secretaries provided updates, Student Body President Luke Rankin discussed the continuing search for the university’s provost following the open forum with candidate William Tate, which occurred earlier in the day.
“July 1 of this coming year, we will go into an RCM budget model, which basically allows all the academic units to be self-sufficient,” Rankin said. “The provost today, you know, candidate Tate, talked about what a tax looks like on specific components of that unit, of individual units and how the provost has the ability to work with that tax to ensure that different programs are being elevated and highlighted. That's incredibly important.”
The provost is the chief academic advisor of the university, overseeing both graduate and undergraduate programs. An open forum will be held for the final candidate for provost, John Wiencek, in the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library Program Room from 2 to 3 p.m. on Thursday.
Be-YOU-tiful Week, Student Government’s flagship self-love campaign, is halfway over. Hannah Anderson, secretary of health and wellness, provided an overview of the week’s programs during the meeting.
Anderson stressed the importance of providing knowledge to the student body over the course of the week.
“So on Thursday we're going to be doing tabling with things, buttons, stickers, all that stuff. But the main thing that I really wanted to make sure that’s happening on Thursday was that students are aware of the services and classes and everything that the health center offers,” Anderson said.
Thursday’s tabling will be followed by the National Eating Disorder Association walk on Saturday.
Lastly, the Congressional Advisory Board (CAB), Student Government’s national advocacy group, has compiled their annual report profiling the on-campus issues they will take to Washington D.C. There, they will meet with South Carolina’s senators and representatives, lobbying them to vote on bills that advance these causes.
Fredo Anderson, director of the CAB, detailed the lobbying process.
“I guess impact-wise when we go up there, I think the biggest thing we're doing is building a relationship and allowing these legislators to know that these are the issues that are going on on campus, and these are the things we care about, tangible impact-wise,” Anderson said.
In the past, the CAB has indeed had tangible impacts on legislative decisions. Two years ago, Anderson said, South Carolinian legislators voted for the SAFER act, which distributed sexual assault forensic kits throughout the Southeast, as a result of the CAB’s lobbying.
This year, the issues the CAB has chosen to hone in on include opioid and prescription drug abuse, first generation student advocacy and mental health.