The Student Government Association discussed new motions, greek housing and COVID-19 vaccinations for Nicholls at its weekly meeting at 4 p.m. 

SGA also had two guest speakers present during the meeting. The first was University President Jay Clune.

“We probably vaccinated close to 700 and that includes some second vaccines of the Pfizer. So, we have vaccinated all allied health faculty, students and staff who wanted the vaccine the first round. We’ve given them subsequent chances to get that vaccine,” Clune said. 

Clune also said they have vaccinated all faculty 65 years and older and their spouses. 

“Reason we did this is because we have a lot of vaccines and not enough customers. I don’t… With the system office, that telling the university to vaccinate 65 and over is like telling the nursing home to vaccinate 22 and under. Our population did not fit the demographic,” Clune said. 

This week, Clune said they are going to vaccinate those 55 and older with comorbidities, any pregnant women, anyone with down syndrome, or anyone who is a student teacher.

Clune said they will continue to rely on testing, distancing and masking when it comes to COVID-19. He mentioned students being close together at the football game Friday night and the reason for not social distancing was students might have been cold. 

“They’re seeking body heat and I get that. As we go into Saturday’s game, hopefully we can spread out a little bit, keep our masks on. Students do much better masking than the general population when it comes to our campus. We are going to try to have more education rather than policing,” Clune said. 

Clune said he hopes they can continue to promote tickets to the sporting events and also encourages students to wear their masks when attending. 

Throughout his visit, Clune also said they are renovating the restrooms in the student union, and they are applying renovations to the back of Talbot. He also mentioned the idea of starting greek housing. 

“When I came here, that was one of the first questions we got. We’ve been meeting on it for about a year and a half now starting with the sororities and we’re working with an architectural firm now that is going to do some conceptual rendering,” Clune said. 

He said when information is finalized for greek housing, they will announce those plans to the public. 

The second guest speaker was Aimee Hollander from the department of teacher education. Hollander proposed an idea to partner with SGA that would allow students to give feedback on what their professors did well when teaching and what they did not. 

Hollander said she tried focus groups and surveys, but she thinks students will listen more to their peers.

“It would be appreciated if we didn’t name professors and things like that. Right? Like we would just want to talk about things we saw that went well and things that we would like to improve,” Hollander said. 

Hollander also said that she wants students to be able to appreciate their faculty for all that they do for students. She wants SGA to partner with her to help get these results. 

After the guest speakers, the meeting moved onto reports by the executive board. 

Public Relations Director Megan Rousse mentioned that SGA will be doing another ticket giveaway this Thursday and Friday. They will also be doing St. Patrick’s Day giveaway shirts on March 15 from 10:40 a.m to 12:50 p.m.

The first motion passed at the meeting was refrigerators for Gouaux Hall at the cost of about $2,500. These refrigerators are used by core courses and for some graduate research in Gouaux Hall. 

Another motion that was passed was an appointment of a supreme court chief justice. The motion was passed and Matthew Badeaux was sworn in as the new officer at the end of the meeting. 

The meeting then moved into a discussion period where the SGA members nominated Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls on ballots.