Student Government opened their meeting on Wednesday, March 27 with a presentation from a Barnes and Noble representative. Renee Banach demonstrated how to use the website tcnjlionpride.com to order apparel and merchandise for student organizations. According to the website, students can choose from over 100,000 products, some of which can be personalized. The website, targeted toward larger groups, processes orders no smaller than 24 pieces and tries to offer lower prices.
Banach stated that Barnes and Noble is continually adding more products, and in the past three months, over 7,000 products.
SG presented and passed new legislation at the meeting. The bill deals with recognizing political and religious organizations. According to the bill, politically or religiously affiliated groups presenting to SG are allowed to duplicate similar organizations.
“The general council who is the head lawyer of the College approached us and just wanted us to assess our approval process and make sure that we were respecting and perfecting the speech rights of religious and political organizations,” said Devin Dimmig, vice president for governmental affairs.
Such organizations would still have to comply with leadership standards. This bill does not prevent them from being rejected.
“They are allowed to duplicate the purpose of another organization,” Dimmig said. “But we will still be looking at their leadership, their structure and their sustainability.”
The bill passed without moving to debate.
The CAP attendance policy will be reviewed this week. SG executive president, Christina Kopka, explained the current standing of the policy and announced that a representative from CAP will be coming next week to present to SG.
“It is pretty straight forward. Basically, it’s up to the professor how they are going to excuse an absence or not. But it is always on you to prove why you were absent and to let them know prior,” Kopka said. “They are just trying to make sure that we dot all out ‘i’s and have all our ‘t’s crossed with this policy.”
Annie Montero, vice president for student services, announced that planning for Finals Fest is underway. The committee plans on possibly having an ice cream bar and caricature artist.
The College raised over $70,000 for Relay for Life last week.
“That number is leaps and bounds greater than we have ever had before,” vice president for community relations Tyler Liberty said.
