The United Students Government held its weekly meeting in Bulger West on March 11. At the meeting, USG members discussed new equipment for the fitness center and possible recruitment methods.

USG President Eric Sauerzopf spoke to the coordinator of the fitness center who mentioned the need for a grant.

This grant would be anywhere from $500 to just under $50,000 to provide new equipment for the center.

After talking it over, the executive board realized this proposal would be difficult to approve.

“We don’t have the funds for it, as you know enrollment is down,” Sauerzopf said. “Hopefully we can find some other solutions to help the fitness center out because it would impact all students on campus.”

Emily Leminger, administrative vice president for academic affairs, brought up ideas on how to bring enrollment back up. One of her ideas included reaching out to high school students by speaking at schools. She said that she’ll post a signup sheet for senators who are open to the idea.

“If that is something that you guys are interested in doing then we can absolutely do that,” Leminger said.

Leminger is working with the Vice President for Enrollments in order to implement this plan.

With the recruitment plan in motion, Sauerzopf stressed the importance of more ideas to make changes.

“Our campus isn’t perfect,” Sauerzopf said. “We have the power to make changes and it just can’t come from the executive board and it just can’t come from the senators.”

Sauerzopf asked that the senators come up with new ideas for the next meeting. However, with rising tension between members in the Senate, some feel like their ideas aren’t going to be implemented.

Steven Cornelio, a USG senator, said, “There’s a lot of ideas that I have and there’s a lot of ideas to move forward, but it’s always an issue of ‘we don’t have money for that,’ or ‘the business staff said no,’ or ‘this committee can’t,’ or ‘this person can’t do this.’ It’s always an issue or a problem when something is brought up. We need to figure out what can happen and what we can do so we can make those changes that we need to make.”

Also at the meeting Terry Evans, a Buffalo State student, asked to join the Senate. In his speech he mentioned why he should be a member of USG.

“We’re here to educate the students. Whatever they need, they come to us and that’s what I’m here to do,” Evans said.

Sauerzopf then gave his thoughts and brought up what he thinks about Evans’ character.

“I’ve noticed he’s been at the past few Senate meetings and I spoke with Terry last Thursday for about 30 minutes and I can honestly say that he is one of the most intelligent individuals that’s wanted to be a senator at USG,” Sauerzopf said.

Evans became a USG senator with 38 votes.

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