On April 13 the Cameron University Student Government discussed Cameron’s future budget, recognized the 2015-2016 officers and passed Resolution 3114009.
Cameron University Vice President Glen Pinkston spoke to the governing body about the university’s impending budget. The Oklahoma Legislature has not drafted this term’s budget, but Pinkston informed the body that there
is $611 million hole in the Oklahoma budget. The state budget equals around $7 billion and higher education takes up $1 billion which puts Cameron at 14 percent of that budget.
Pinkston did not announce whether Cameron would be receiving a budget cut like it has the past couple of years, which resulted in increased tuition and fees. Currently, Cameron students receiving an undergraduate degree pay $178 per credit hour. But the executives of Cameron do have a course of action in case of cuts.
“The way we are going to deal with a budget cut is to first look at services that could be reduced,” Pinkston said.
“Second, if the cut is big enough, we will look at tuition and fees… Right now, we don’t know what the cut will be… While we might have to raise tuition and fees, our intent is not to.”
The governing body celebrated the election of the new 2015-2016 CU SGA executive officers: President Nikki Kirk,
Vice President Kelly High and Treasurer Lacey Flaig. The new elects will take over beginning with the last meeting of this semester.
Representatives Flaig and Victoria Boudiette took questions from the governing body during second reading and questioning of their bill, Resolution 3114009. The legislation calls “for the establishment of a pre-professional
committee for advising students interested in professional field careers.”
Student representatives and senators expressed concern that the bill did not benefit other majors besides the
sciences. Flaig and Boudiette spoke to other departments about a possible preprofessional committee and found most of them thought one would be helpful to their students.
The committee would consist of volunteers made up faculty, alumni and community members who are experts in the fields of studies students are interested in pursuing. The members would help students prepare for admissions applications, tests and would provide recommendation letters if need be. Resolution 3114009 passed with 18 in the yes, zero in the no and zero in abstention.