SG quickreader: What happened at this week’s SG meeting, April 15

Ongoing debate over new pre-registration policy

Students continued to complain about the new clause for pre-registration according to which students with more than 45 credit hours completed in a certain major cannot pre-register for any courses in that major. Around 800 AUBGers signed a petition against the requirement according to junior Veliko Markov, one of the petition's organizers.

SG wrote a memo to Dean of Faculty Steven Sullivan asking who made the decision and how was it implemented, SG President Vasile Valcov said. "We also asked for it not to be implemented at least until next [academic] year," Valcov added. As of this Wednesday's SG meeting, Sullivan has not replied to the memo.

The primary goal of the new policy is to make sure students can complete their majors, Valcov said. "If you give more to seniors who want electives the question is how to give the required courses to students of lower class standing," he added.

The fact that the university is understaffed is a mismanagement and shouldn't be put on students' heads," Markov said.
Student Alexandru Panici suggested to the SG to hold an open meeting between the students and the administration on the issue. SG will try to organize the meeting by the end of the week, said Senator Giorgi Mariamidze, who chaired the meeting.

Online elections a success

The online election system worked well for the two days of the SG elections, , Valcov said. The turnout was20 percent higher, compared to last year. Half of the student body voted at the first round of the elections, and only 30 students less voted in the run-offs. Valcov thanked Ergys Ristani, Deni Vangjeli and Genti Tola for developing the program, and also the Office of Communications and Computing (OCC) for maintaining the electronic voting system throughout the elections.
Alexandru Panici, Eva Pillossof and Marina Ceprazova formed the winning presidential team, and junior Edlira Dashi became the Student Representative to the Board of Trustees.

New senator appointed

Freshman Dzmitry Miranovich replaced sophomore Arian Berdellima as SG senator. Berdellima had to leave the position as he had too many absence points which SG senators get by not attending SG or committee meetings.

Google Apps an option

OCC is trying to find optimal ways of migrating from the Microsoft Web Access, to the Google Apps for Education system, Valcov said. The decision is not final yet. OCC is considering all the advantages and disadvantages of migrating, and also analyzing migration costs. SG plans to conduct a survey among AUBG students about the usage of Gmail and Microsoft Web Access systems, Valcov said.

Google Apps for Education is a set of free web applications provided by Google. It includes e-mail, calendar, chat, documents and video sharing. Currently, AUBG is using software provided by Microsoft.