The Student Government Association introduced the newly appointed senators of SGA along with a graphic designer at the second weekly Senate meeting.
SGA Vice President Corai Jackson appointed Rida Hassan, Jack Hoda and Kaitlyn Watkins as senators.
Hoda, an English major, was in Freshmen Associates during his first year at Southern Miss. Freshmen Associates is similar to SGA Senate and is a place for students to try the student government system out during their first year. Hoda, now a senior, finally came back to the SGA Senate.
“[Hoda and Hassan] were appointed for a reason,” Senate President Pro Tempore senior political science major Caroline Carney said. “They brought diversity to the body and they also brought a lot of new ideas that could benefit the body.”
Every senator is a part of a committee and brings ideas on how the Senate can better the student body. Hoda’s goals are to work toward a more LGBTQ+ friendly university by better defining gender-neutral bathrooms, relabeling them all gender bathrooms and making the forms and applications include a preferred pronoun space.
“There are very specific things that I would really like to see changed, and I see a very clear way of making those changes happen,” Hoda said.
Hoda said he is excited to have the opportunity to change campus for the better by not only addressing the issues he brought to Senate, but also in the Budget and Appropriations committee. This committee, according to the Senate Bylaws, has discretion over approving or denying purchases of requesting student organizations.
Outside of the Senate appointments, there was a another appointment of a newly added position in the SGA. SGA President McKenna Stone appointed junior finance major Tatum Cave who has been working in graphic design from a very early age due to his father owning a photography studio.
“I’ve dabbled in Photoshop probably ever since I was 10-years-old,” Cave said. “I haven’t done really anything for the school, but I’ve played around with some graphic design for my fraternity.”
By working with his fraternity and being the roommate of the SGA’s Executive Director of Communications Michael Matrick, the SGA found Cave.
Cave’s work with SGA will span from designing graphics for SGA’s events, such as Eaglepalooza or Mental Health Awareness week. “Pretty much anything SGA, I just push it to the public,” Cave said.
Cave said because of his time as the PR chair for his fraternity and as social media operator for his church, he is excited to work on outreach to the student body and has many ideas on how to do so.
Cave had his first meeting Sept. 10 and began working on Snapchat filters for Eaglepalooza as well as other jobs at the discretion of the SGA.
The next SGA Senate Meeting will hold voting on the rewrites of the constitution and other governing documents of the SGA. A constitutional convention will be held Sept. 19 to revise the constitution with the Senators’ feedback in mind.
