Stu­dent Coun­cil Con­cludes Fi­nal Meet­ing of Fall Se­mes­ter

MISHAWAKA -- The Bethel Stu­dent Coun­cil met over Zoom on Mon­day, Nov. 16, at 9 p.m., for their fi­nal meet­ing of the fall se­mes­ter.  

Af­ter the Coun­cil ap­proved last meet­ing’s min­utes, Stu­dent Coun­cil Trea­surer Skyler French briefed every­one about the bud­get. Of the to­tal $14,500 bud­get for both se­mes­ters, only $284.21 was spent this se­mes­ter.  

Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Ray Williams pro­posed ap­prov­ing funds to cre­ate a wall rec­og­niz­ing for­mer and cur­rent Stu­dent Coun­cil mem­bers. The wall would fea­ture pic­tures of the coun­cil mem­bers and cost $200 to cre­ate. Williams said the pur­pose of the wall would be to give the coun­cil more ex­po­sure on cam­pus. 

If ap­proved, pic­tures of the new coun­cil mem­bers would be added to the wall each year. Adding new pic­tures to the wall would cost ap­prox­i­mately $50 each year.  

The coun­cil over­whelm­ingly voted to ap­prove the mo­tion to cre­ate the wall of pic­tures. Un­der­class­men Pres­i­dent Ash­leigh Neier dis­sented from the rest of the coun­cil. 

Williams said he spoke with Bethel Vice Pres­i­dent for Ad­min­is­tra­tion & Fi­nance and CFO Jerry White, Ph.D. They dis­cussed re­in­stat­ing the am­bas­sador pro­gram, giv­ing stu­dents the op­por­tu­nity to work with cam­pus safety. Bethel is also still in the process of get­ting two to three cam­eras for var­i­ous cam­pus park­ing lots. 

Coun­cil mem­bers also de­bated the pos­si­bil­ity of bring­ing back a stu­dent coun­cil pub­lic re­la­tions (PR) po­si­tion. Williams said they needed some­one de­voted full-time to run­ning the coun­cil’s so­cial me­dia plat­forms.  

Other mem­bers ob­jected, say­ing that pre­vi­ous PR rep­re­sen­ta­tives had lit­tle or noth­ing to do. Mul­ti­ple mem­bers cur­rently share the re­spon­si­bil­ity of post­ing on the so­cial me­dia ac­counts. Af­ter nearly 30 min­utes of de­bate, the coun­cil de­cided to chair the dis­cus­sion. 

Up­per­class­men Pres­i­dent Han­nah Dar­ling said plans for the se­nior gift are run­ning smoothly. Speak­ing for un­der­class­men, Neier said the canned food drive went bet­ter than ex­pected. 

In an email to the Bea­con, Neier wrote that Manges Hall won the com­pe­ti­tion, col­lect­ing 210 cans. Shupe Hall fin­ished as the run­ner-up, col­lect­ing 143 cans. The coun­cil awarded Manges with a $100 cash prize. 

At the con­clu­sion of the meet­ing, Williams said stu­dent de­vel­op­ment is over­see­ing fi­nals week study nights. Coun­cil mem­bers will be meet­ing with their in­di­vid­ual sub-com­mit­tees dur­ing the first week of spring se­mes­ter classes.