SGA discusses ACM and signs a card for New York

The Student Government Association tabled a bill this past Wednesday, which would allocate $450 to the Association of Computing Machinery to send three teams to attend a competition that the group will sponsor.

The bill would give the needed $450 for admission for the three teams (150 dollars a team) to the Southeastern Regional Computer Programming Competition, which the group is sponsoring here at Georgia College & State University. This is the second year the group will sponsor the event, held at the Centennial Center, which schools from all over the southeast will attend.

Larger District one or D-1 schools, such as Clemson University, the University of Georgia, and Florida State University, attended last year’s competition and are scheduled to attend this years convention, according to Bill McGouirk, the President of SGA. There will be a total of 72 teams from all over the southeast competing in this competition and raising recognition of GC&SU, also according to McGouirk.

“When we compete with these schools, it gets our name out there, especially when we place higher than another school. For example, last year one of our teams beat a D-1 school. That is a pretty good accomplishment, and it gets GC&SU’s name out there. It also helps the department of math and computer science out as well,” Bill McGouirk said.

Some of the senators expressed concern over ACM asking for money from SGA for the second year in a row. Sophomore senator Joey Villamez voiced concern over the organization not conducting any fund-raisers for the event.

“It’s mainly because this is the second year in a row that they have come to us for funding, for the same event, without having done any fund-raisers themselves. Also because relative to the amount of money that ACM has spent, on organizing this competition, it might not be very much, but relative to the amount of money that we have to spend all semester long, it’s a substantial portion. It is 450 dollars out of the some 2200 dollars that we have left for this semester,” Villamez said.

Most senators agreed that the school should have representation, but the cost that SGA should bear was up for discussion.

“I agree that we should have representation, but if you (ACM) go to this next year, are you going to make more of an effort to raise money,” Mandy Hodges, a SGA senator, said.

“We are usually hesitant to give huge bills like that, because we have to leave our options open for later in the semester. I definitely think this a bill for SGA, and I definitely think that we should be represented, however, I don’t know that the entire amount should be funded through us. They definitely should get some money from SGA. I would probably vote for 300 dollars, and that would then involve them doing some fundraising on their own,” Villamez said.

SGA is also sending a card to the New York City Fire Department. The card will be signed by SGA representatives and sent to the rescue workers working at the World Trade Center.

“We are sending a card to the main New York Fire Department office in New York City. It is to the rescue workers, basically saying, that we’re sorry for the co-workers you may have lost, and telling them what a great job they’ve done rebuilding New York and the World Trade Center,” McGouirk said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 5 2001. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry