Saint Mary's Student Government Association (SGA) approved its first sponsorship of the year at its meeting Monday night.
The Communicative Disorders Club made a presentation to the SGA board requesting a sponsorship for three of their members to represent Saint Mary's and the club at the National American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention in New Orleans. The association is the organization through which all speech pathologists and audiologists must be certified, Communicative Disorders Club president Kendra Fallet said.
The Communicative Disorders Club attends the convention annually in order to network with other professionals in their field and to keep up on the latest cutting-edge research in speech pathology and audiology.
The Saint Mary's club does a lot of work in the South Bend Community at the Logan Center and the research they bring back from the convention helps them provide the community with the latest techniques in the field, Fallet said.
Saint Mary's is one of the few undergraduate institutions represented at the convention, which sets them apart.
"It speaks highly of Saint Mary's and the importance we place on being on the cutting edge of our field," Fallet said.
SGA approved the Communicative Disorders Club's sponsorship request and the club will receive $1,500 to cover their convention registration fees, airfare and hotel fees.
An SGA goal for sponsorships this year is to write checks directly to the sources and not to the club themselves. They would like to also avoid reimbursements. However, due to time crunches at the beginning of the year reimbursements cannot always be avoided and SGA is taking the situations on an individual basis until they iron out all the issues.
"When we're getting our feet off the ground there are some things we still need to work through," SGA president Jenny Hoffman explained.
The SGA executive board settled on club allotment amounts at their meeting Monday morning and clubs have been notified on how much they will be receiving, along with explanations behind what they were awarded and sponsorship and appeal forms.
In an effort to be transparent, next Monday there will be an open SGA meeting where any club can come and appeal their allotment and SGA will look at the allotment again and render a decision.
The SGA board hopes that now, after their new procedures have been put into place, sponsorships and club allotments will run more smoothly in years to come.
