The agenda of this Sunday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association was dominated by the vote on the budget passed out of the Financial Appropriations Committee for fiscal year 2011 on Thursday.

But Senators still found time to remark on the most recent controversy at Georgetown, the Plan A protest held over GAAP weekend, and dream about convening the GUSA Senate in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

GUSA Budget FY ’11: The GUSA Senate voted to approve the fiscal year 2011 GUSA budget, which allocated $0 to both the Student Activities Commission and the Performing Arts Advisory Council. The budget will increase the level of funding received by Club Sports, Georgetown Program Board, the Center for Social Justice, and the GUSA Executive, while funding for the Media Board will remain unchanged.

Members of the Financial and Appropriations Committee who presented the budget said they had brought the budget without funding for either SAC or PAAC before the Senate because they didn’t want to delay funding for the other advisory boards. They are working to reach agreements with SAC and PAAC on compromises so the two groups could meet GUSA’s six suggested reforms and receive money from the student activities fee.

The senators said they were confident that both PAAC and SAC would receive student activities fee from supplemental funding after they had complied with the reforms. Senators have said that the agreement with PAAC is only awaiting a review by its members. Meanwhile, Senators will meet with SAC soon to try to negotiate an agreement.

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Last year’s woeful attendance at Georgetown University Student Association Senate meetings seems to be a thing of the past.

Following our look at the attendance records of GUSA Senators for the fall semester, which found that only one senator—cheerleader-cum-delegate Eric Cusimano (SFS ‘10)—had missed enough meetings to qualify for a review by the Ways and Means Committee, Vox did a followup that found, incidentally, the exact same thing for this semester so far.

Although many senators have missed three or more meetings or two consecutive meetings, only one senator’s attendance record includes enough unexcused absences to warrant review by the Ways and Means Committee. (Three or more missed meetings or two consecutive missed meetings qualify for review if they are unexcused.)

“[R]ight now, the other Senators have all provided excuses deemed valid by the Speaker to bring them below the limit,” GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) wrote in an e-mail. “We have never lacked quorum at a single Senate meeting and it is infrequent indeed that a Senator misses consecutive meetings.”

The senator whose record makes his continued service as a Senator questionable is, once again, Eric Cusimano, who has missed four meetings each semester. Talbot said his record has been referred to the Ways and Means Committee for review, and a tentative hearing about it has been scheduled for this Sunday. Vox was not able to get in touch with Cusimano. Earlier this semester, when he was chided for his repeated absences, he said that they were due to his commitments to cheerleading for the Georgetown Basketball team.

Last year’s Senate, by contrast, saw meetings where Senators were unable to make quorum without calling up absent members to ask them to resign (or lost quorum when a member stepped out to take a phone call), and six senators had such bad attendance that they were eligible for forcible removal from the Senate.

Here are the Senators with the most absences this semester. Most explained to Vox that all or most of their absences were excused.

• Shaalin Parekh (Copley) – 3 this semester, 3 total
• Kyle Pienaar (Village C East) – 3 this semester, 5 total
• Nolan Johnson (Village A E-H) – 3 this semester, 5 total
• Geraldine Miranda (Village C West) – 3 this semester, 4 total
• Ace Factor (At-Large) – 3 this semester, 4 total

Three Senators—Talbot, Nick Troiano (COL ’11), and Colton Malkerson (COL ’13)—have shown perfect attendance all year. (See trophy, above).

GUSA’s coveted attendance trophy

Well, duh, you might say upon seeing that headline. But recall that at one point last school year, attendance at Georgetown University Student Association meetings had gotten so low that senators found themselves unable to make quorum and identified six senators with attendance so bad, they could be forcibly expelled from the Senate.

So how are they doing this year?

Much better. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) said that attendance at most meetings has been over 85 percent, and that only one senator, cheerleader-cum-delegate Eric Cusimano (SFS ’10) has missed enough meetings to qualify for a review by the Ways and Means Committee.

“According to my reading of the bylaws, attendance becomes a question when a Senator misses more than two consecutive meetings or more than three meetings in a given Semester,” Talbot wrote in an e-mail. “At that point I believe it’s up to the Ways and Means Committee to review whether to take action on the matter.” (Talbot confirmed his reading of the bylaws with GUSA’s parliamentarian).

Vox reviewed GUSA’s attendance sheet and found that a number of other senators do have two or three absences, but these have been excused, Talbot said. (What constitutes an “excused absence” is at the discretion of the speaker.)

With Yasmin Serrato explaining in an e-mail that one of her three recorded absences was actually a tardy, Susie Movitz is the only senator to have missed three meetings. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo from Flickr user photofriendly

With the polls currently open, it’s time to decide who’ll be representing the student body in GUSA this year.  Of course, the vigilant voter always wants to make an informed decision, but it can be tough to know where exactly a candidate stands.

With that dilemma in mind, Vox sent out a survey to all of this year’s GUSA candidates, and we’ll be posting all the responses we received today.

In this post: At Large candidates Eric Cusimano (SFS ’10), Chris Pigott (COL ’12) and  Sam Ungar (COL ’12), LXR candidate Adam Talbot (COL ’12), and Village A (A-D) Nick Troiano (COL ’11)!

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