Grace Murphy
Social Media Manager
Franciscan University Student Government (FUSG) discussed its mission during the second session of its constitutional convention Saturday, March 26, at 9 a.m. in Egan 219.
Senior President Alex McKenna opened the session with a prayer. After the prayer, he read out loud the mission statement for FUSG.
“Basically, this session will just focus on the mission,” McKenna said, “what it is (and) do we need to change it.”
Constitutional convention attendees, including FUSG executive members, senators and delegates, were invited to express thoughts and concerns about the mission of FUSG.
Student government members discussed how to make FUSG more accessible to general members of the student body.
Junior Sen. Mary Catherine Prostojesky said student government meetings should be moved from the St. Leo Room since it is an uninviting space for visitors.
FUSG members also talked about the lack of interest shown in running for class senate positions. In the last junior senate race, only three candidates ran for three open senator seats.
“I’m not saying that the best candidate always wins,” Prostojesky said. “I’m just saying that your chances of getting someone competent and invested will be better if more people were running.”
Junior Kristina Beer, who was chosen as a constitutional delegate for her role in household life, brought up concerns about FUSG showing favoritism to certain students and clubs.
“I think that student government values certain people’s opinions over other people’s,” Beer said. “There are a lot of stereotypes about different households here and different groups of people, groups of friends, types of people. … Do you truly value every single student’s opinion or do you value the opinion of people that are on the same agenda as you?”
McKenna summed up the topics talked about in this session into three general categories.
“The senate doesn’t care or is (in) some ways ineffective, that people aren’t aware of student government and its capabilities and that there is a disparity between student government’s impression of itself and the student body’s impression of student government,” he said.
McKenna closed the second session at about 11 p.m. with another prayer.
The FUSG constitutional convention ran from March 25-27, and held sessions on a range of topics concerning the operations of student government.