SGA to recommend changing courtyard concert policy

         The most continuous issue discussed at the Student Government Association meeting was its recommendation of moving the concert series held in the courtyard every Tuesday and Thursday.

       Ben Williams, vice president of student life, raised the issue by saying the amount of students in the courtyard during the times of 12 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. on those days presented a serious safety concern for students.

        "Let's say there is radio equipment on the stage and it catches fire," Williams said. "What's going to happen? Worst case scenario we're going to have several GSU students die because the university did not act."

Senators Kenneth Golden and Taylor Briggs raised questions over how to get people away from the courtyard despite the historic tradition of out- door concerts in the area.

          President James Dutton asked whether the space in front of the library could be redesigned to allow greater space for students passing through. Williams countered that structural and funding problems would probably prevent a total re-design.

         While Williams conceded that moving the concert series elsewhere would likely face considerable amount of student opposition, he said the SGA should hear from a wide variety of students before making its recommendation.

         "It would be a tremendous shift for the university and something that some students are going to oppose, but sometimes there are times where we have to evaluate what's best for the majority and what's best for the minor- ity," Williams said.

To get better student opinions on the subject, Senator Rashaad Owens motioned for a town hall meeting with students to determine how to proceed.

        Discussion of campus police response

      In his officer report, vice president of public relations for the SGA, Jarell Abrams, said he would be writing a letter addressed to the Georgia State University Police Department to deal with perceived failures by the department in responding to emergencies.

       He said that he witnessed a woman suffer a seizure in class last Tuesday, but police took approximately 20 minutes to respond after problems in answering the campus alert phone.

        Abrams expressed safety concerns for other students that suffer from various diseases or handicaps. As someone with diabetes, he said he would be worried that if he went into shock, no one would be available to help him.

Abrams also encouraged other SGA members to file complaints with Information Systems and Technologies and the GSUPD to address response issues, not counting the latest spike in robberies last month.

       "I don't think the campus police [are] adequately doing their job," Abrams said. "And this has to be addressed."

VP Paul Marmol to resign

SGA vice president of Budget and Finance Paul Marmol will be resigning his position, effective Jan. 1.

Marmol said he would be accepting an intern- ship with the London office of Deloitte, an auditing and accounting firm, next spring. President James Dutton said the position would be open to everyone that filled out an application but that the Executive board highly encouraged "leadership development" from Senators already in the SGA.

"Anyone who wants to try and fill that vacancy will have to turn in an application just like a vacant senator application. I'll have to interview those folks and figure out who's best and take that to the E- Board," Dutton said. "Then we'll bring that to you all."

SGA now in charge of new student organization, mid-year SAFC money

Following the conclusion of the SGA Senate meeting, the Executive Board called a separate meeting for only its members.

In the meeting, they discussed the new application process for mid-year Student Activity Fee applications for University Wide and Diversity pro- grams, which will now be managed by the SGA until the end of the year.

VP Williams estimated that the SGA would be swarmed with an "exorbitant amount" of applications from Diversity organizations, since he said, "they were all underfunded."