By Harrison Neville

In the recent SGA meeting, the SGA Senate passed their first bill in their current one-year term. Bill 2021-B-001, titled “Replacement of the sand court volleyball net” was brought to the floor by the Governmental Affairs Committee.  

As its name suggest, the bill would replace the current net in the sand court, which committee member Caitlin Blackburn, the SGA administrative vice president, described as “sagging” and said they were “not regulation.” 

Blackburn also told the Senate that “the assistant volleyball coach has offered to go out and set it up for us, so we don’t even have to worry about it.” 

The bill was tabled for the week and then passed at the Feb. 24 Senate meeting. When it was brought up again, Graduate Senator Tez Mitchell reiterated some of the points made by Blackburn and added that the committee hoped the net would “encourage exercise.” 

“We’re hoping that once we do replace this net, it’ll attract more people and more teams to be able to come out and use the net in a more professional…[and] recreational manner,” explained Mitchell.  

The total cost of the bill was $77.70. The net was picked out by the assistant volleyball coach.  

The other highlights from the meeting held on Feb. 17 were the committee reports given by executive members.  

SGA Treasurer Josiah Garrett informed everyone that the Alumni Committee was working on activities for alums to participate in lieu of the normal activities.  

Garrett also told the Senate that the Black Heritage committee had just gotten its first lecture series approved. Senior Class president, Solomon Balaam-Reed added that the lecture series would be in the fall of 2021 and was named after UM Professor Emeritus Dr. Wilson Fallin Jr.  

Blackburn announced that the concert and lecture committee approved a two-part series with two different string quartets. The series will feature some of UM music professor Dr. Joseph Landers’s work, and will be held in two parts. The first part will be held in Davis to a limited, socially distanced audience. The second part will be in an outdoor venue and will be open for people to walk by.  

For the University Student Publications committee, Education Senator Heather Collier reported that the committee had met to approve a new business manager for The Alabamian and would meet again in April to select new editors-in-chief for the next school year, as well as approving the business manager for the next year.  

For SGA Senate reports, Government Affairs announced that they were working on new legislation to address the air conditioning being turned off in Bloch Hall on the weekends.  

Both the Students’ Rights and Interest and the Academic Affairs committees said that they were working on resolutions, while the Campus Life committee said they were working on a bill to acquire launchpads for the disc golf course on campus.  

In closing, SGA Vice President Natalie Seavers announced that SGA Senate and Executive position applications were open and invited interested senators to sit in on executive meetings.