Saint Mary's Board of Governance (BOG) members discussed fining students a small fee if they sign up for an event but don't show up and do not inform the hosting organization.
"We're just going to be charging a small fee in hopes that [students] will be responsible and call us [to tell us they aren't going]," student body president Susan McIlduff said at the board's meeting Monday night.
This new rule is taking effect after the group analyzed the attendance of both the Heritage Week Dinner and the last Chicago bus trip.
After all the tickets for space on the two buses had been picked up, about three quarters of the students did not attend the Student Government Association sponsored trip, McIlduff said.
The same thing happened with the Heritage Dinner - 138 people signed up to eat in a room with a 120-person capacity and there were more on the waiting list for the evening.
"We didn't call people on the waiting list because we were already over capacity," McIlduff said. "People ended up not showing up so more [students who wanted to] could have attended."
Future bus trips, including one next Saturday, will still be free. But according to the new rule, if a student picks up a ticket and decides not to go, they must return their ticket at least 24 hours before Saturday so another student has a chance to attend or face a $20 fine.
In Other BOG news:
u Sib Fest will take place Feb. 23-25. Sign ups have been extended until Friday. Students can contact Samantha Peterson at speter01@saintmarys.edu if they are interested in registering a younger sibling for the event.
u Elections for the Student Diversity Board and Residence Hall Association president and vice president begin with campaigning today. Voting will take place Monday. Two tickets are running for Student Diversity Board and one is running for Residence Hall Association.
u Board of Governance turnover is April 1. The new student body president and vice president, Kim Hodges and Kelly Payne, will take over at that time.
