The “First 56” initiative resolution was proposed Monday to the SGA Senate. Sen. Sully Jeter, senator-at-large and chairman of the Academic Affairs Committee, proposed the resolution to Senate on Monday night.
The “First 56” is a resolution to help freshman start their college career with good habits and behaviors. The “First 56” refers to the first six weeks of a student’s first semester where a new college student is at an increased risk for risky behaviors including drinking, substance abuse and hazing, the resolution reads.
Eric Smith, director of Health Promotion and Wellness, spoke during Senate open floor time to explain why he thinks the resolution would benefit Auburn students.
“We want to do everything we can to provide them (first- year students) opportunities to get them connected socially, academically and physically,” Smith said. “We’ve partnered with Academic Support Services to create the ‘First 56.’”
The program will run from freshman convocation to fall break. Smith, Jeter and other members of the Academic Affairs Committee want to implement the program with the fall 2018 freshman class.
The goal of the implementation of the resolution is to get students involved in good decision making, have organizations host more events during those first six weeks and have organizations put the yet-to-be-determined “First 56” logo on the organization’s events, Jeter said when he proposed the resolution.
“We saw that other universities had done something like this called the ‘First 6’ and the ‘First 56’ was because Auburn, 1856,” Jeter said. “There’s a lot of different creative ideas behind it … [and] we're hoping that maybe we can encourage students to not do that [risky behavior].”
The resolution will be voted on at the next Senate meeting Monday, April 23.
A resolution was made to pull approximately $13,000 from the service reserve fund to give to the Big Event in order to create a website for both students and community members.
In previous years, the Big Event has used Google forms and Excel documents to get volunteers signed up and sent letters with water bills to community members to invite them to sign up to have their home made into a project site for the Big Event.
This new website will create a central location for students and community partners. Students will be able to sign up to serve as a volunteer while community partners can request a project site all on one website.
The website will look similar to a ticketing website and will be modeled after Texas A&M University’s Big Event website, where the Big Event was created.
Executive positions within SGA were also decided during Monday night's meeting.
Racheal Lander was appointed to serve as the College of Veterinary Medicine School’s Council president and Cynthia Clark as the vice president Monday night for the remainder of the 2018–2019 term.
Maggie Rowell was appointed to serve as the Senate technical assistant for the remainder of the 2018–2019 term.
Sen. Ada Ruth Huntley from the College of Human Sciences and Sen. Avi Vaidya spoke up during debate to speak to Rowell’s character and skills she has to serve as the Senate technical assistant.
The new SGA Cabinet was proposed to be appointed at the next Senate meeting. Hannah Locklear, junior in elementary education, was also proposed to be appointed as College of Education senator.
To close the Senate meeting, SGA President Dane Block reminded senators to not worry about whose name is on the bill but the work behind it. Block also congratulated the senators for all the hard work they have put into Senate so far.
It was announced Monday night that the application deadline for SGA positions, such as E-board and Balfour Ring Ambassador, has been extended to next Monday, April 23. Students can find the applications on AUInvolve.
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