Tuesday, March 11, the Student Government Association Senate deliberated several new bills including changes to the TotalAccess textbook plan and the value of meal swipes. The senate also engaged in a prolonged debate about the new SGA constitution for the 2025-2026 school year.
Bill updates from executive office
Student body president Dante Grayson announced the university’s progress on a bill initially passed in the fall of 2022. The bill aimed to revamp the Degree Audit Reporting System program students use to ensure they’re on track to graduate. Grayson explained the upcoming changes for DARS.
“So they’re actually moving along with this process and there’s going to be a brand new launch of DARS in fall 2025,” Grayson said. “You’ll be seeing some of that, it’ll help your planning for your courses, and they’re also going to be working on that for the rest of you all’s tenure here at the university.”
Grayson informed the senate body about an airport shuttle bill being worked on by the administration — this bill has already passed, providing students with a university shuttle to the airport. Grayson reported that University Transportation was making great progress on the project.
First readings: Proposed changes to TotalAccess, meal equivalency value, Student Health Center
Bill 24-12, the Physical Textbooks Bill, is sponsored by Sens. Niya Angelova and Jack Scott. The bill requires VolBooks to provide physical copies of any textbook to students if a professor prefers a physical version.
Students may need a physical copy because a professor may want them to annotate the text, or when they don’t allow technology in the class.
The bill’s authors cited that in a survey they conducted, 54% of students had to purchase a textbook with their own money even though everyone enrolled in TotalAccess. This bill would plug the gap for students that is left open when professors require physical textbooks.
Bill 24-13, the Meal Equivalency Bill, is sponsored by Sen. Blair but was drafted by members of the First Year Council. The bill seeks to raise the cash value of meal equivalency from $5.50 to $8.00. According to the presenters, UT is at the bottom of cash value for meal equivalency in the SEC, with most other schools offering closer to $10.00.
The presenters conducted a study on campus and determined that the average P.O.D Market snack was $3.59 and drink was $3.65. Additionally, the average meal on campus is $9.82 and the median price is $9.99.
According to their statistics, if a student paid for one meal a day at $9.83 they would be paying $154 over the allotted $300 dining dollars provided to students.
The presenters stated that there are only two restaurants on campus where the meal equivalency covers the cost of a meal — one bagel at Einstein’s Bagels and half a sandwich at Union Deli — and agreed that $8.00 would be feasible. The bill must be presented again and voted on before being passed.
Bill 24-14, the Student Health Online Platform Bill, also sponsored by Sen. Blair and drafted by the First Year Council, would allow students to schedule online appointments at the Student Health Center.
This bill would give students more flexibility and accessibility to get an appointment when they are sick or injured.
Second readings: Online VolCore classes, sustainable Gameday Cups
Bill 24-10, the Online Vol Core Bill, introduced two weeks ago by Sen. Caroline Greenholtz, would allow students to complete VolCore classes by requiring certain courses to have online-asynchronous options.
One revision of the bill includes limiting the online-asynchronous VolCore classes to humanities and social science courses, science courses without labs and business courses. This change was made because it was deemed impractical to require high-level VolCore classes to offer an online option.
While the bill faced fairly intensive technical questioning from other senators, the bill ultimately passed with 60% in favor, 34% opposed and 6% abstaining.
Bill 24-11, the Gameday Cup Bill, was also introduced two weeks ago by Sens. Don Darcangelo, Helen Alexander, Thomas Ernstberger, Laura Gilliard, Margaret Gourley and Andrew Hogan. The bill would require the University and Aramark to make the souvenir game day cups found at events like football, baseball and basketball games recyclable.
The sponsors added that this bill should be effective by the 2026 spring semester and passed the senate unanimously.
Constitution second reading and vote
The majority of Tuesday’s meeting focused on proposed changes to the SGA constitution which governs the Executive Board, SGA Undergraduate Senate, First Year Council, Department of Justice Board and more.
Senators proposed several amendments, but only one passed after intense debate. The amendment that passed added an appeal process for someone to be removed from the president’s cabinet by the president.
The amendment now requires that if someone feels they were wrongfully removed, they can seek restoration through the Department of Justice Board — President Dante and Vice President McKenzie West opposed this amendment.
Other disputes between the executive’s proposed constitution and members of the senate focused on who the executive cabinet was made up of, which positions could be appointed and who could be removed.
After a lengthy debate, the new Constitution passed with 88% in favor, 9% opposed and 3% abstaining. Vice President West encapsulated the biggest changes to this year’s constitution.
“The biggest changes that you’re seeing in this is an efficient restructuring of the top executive positions to help with productivity overall and to create an equal share of workload,” West said. “It’s just restructuring for productivity and how we’ve seen it needs to change over our term.”
Resolutions compelling internet improvement, celebrating SGA’s women
Resolution 24-4, Increasing Internet Connectivity, is sponsored by Sens. Caroline Marcus and Avery Combs. It passed unanimously.
The bill states that it is “A resolution calling on UTK to take action in ensuring students have fair and reasonable connectivity access to both the UT Open and Eduroam wifi networks, specifically in academic buildings, libraries, the Student Union, and other locations on campus in which students have increased need to access the internet for both academic and non academic purposes.”
Resolution 24-5, To Celebrate the Work of Women in the Student Government Association, was introduced and sponsored by Sen. Blair. This resolution honors Women’s History Month and commemorates work done by women within the student government.
Blair also cited that 55% of SGA Senate seats are women and 85% of bills authored this academic year were sponsored or co-sponsored by women. Resolution 24-5 passed with 88% in favor, no one in opposition and 12% abstaining.
Resolutions are simply statements of support for an action or policy by the SGA Senate and carry no actual effects.
