Nominations were the order of the evening at Thursday night’s meeting of the Student Government Association. The Senate approved the Executive Council’s nominations for both the UT Presidential search committee and for the five open SGA Senate-at-Large seats.

Word came from Nashville last week that Governor Phil Bredesen would be selecting, from a pool of three to five nominees, one student, faculty member, and alumnus from each UT campus to serve on a committee responsible for assisting the search for a new University of Tennessee system president. The SGA Executive Council offered for consideration Stephen Burgin, Nicole Franklin, Ann-Marie Lovelace, and Tiffany Trice. Dusty Dean, who was nominated to represent UTM on a UT system-wide committee concerned with the way tuition is assessed, said, “I look forward to working with UTM students in regards to tuition reform and sharing our suggested reforms with Knoxville and Chattanooga.”

Senators from four of the five colleges reported no attendance at their Town Hall Meetings, intended to be students’ means of communicating wishes and concerns to their representatives. One student attended the meeting for the College of Humanities and Fine Arts.

The senators from the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences, unfazed by the dismal turnout at their meeting, set about Brehm Hall and the EPS Building to ask questions of any faculty member or student they could approach. Senator Matt Elsroad reported discontent with budget cuts in the geology department.

Senate Bill 1 (the “Maxey bill”), an amendment to the UT Martin SGA Constitution concerning the process of filing bills, was approved, as were the nominations to Senate-at-Large of Travis Davis, Devin Hall, Michele Priddy, Poun Rathsombath, and Adam Wilson.