Marquette Student Government held their first meeting of the 2009-’10 school year Thursday, discussing their accomplishments over the summer and their intended plans for the year.

MUSG also appointed a temporary Student Organizations Allocations Committee member during the meeting and briefly discussed the upcoming primaries and elections for residential senators.

The meeting, held at the usual 7:30 p.m. Thursdays in AMU 227, was the first session held since last semester.  MUSG President Henry Thomas, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, opened the executive board’s segment of the meeting by going over the improvements that occurred over the summer, including the adoption of single-stream recycling and the construction of the Wells Street median.

Thomas said MUSG was hoping to have a “median celebration” soon to commemorate the project’s completion.

Vice President Stephanie Stopka, a senior in the College of Business Administration, followed up Thomas’ statement with a proposal for MUSG to work on campus safety throughout the year. Stopka said she hoped they could put a focus on beefing up bike safety, as a number of bikes were stolen over the summer.

Shortly after this, the Senate appointed Colleen Hastings, a junior in the College of Health Sciences, to be a member of the SOA committee. Communication Vice President Lauren Lakomek said this appointment was just to fill vacancies caused by departing senators, and that Hastings’ appointment will be only temporary.

“The nominated senator, Colleen Hastings, will only be voting at one SOA committee meeting as this is a temporary replacement until the new Senators from the Fall residential elections are elected,” Lakomek said in an e-mail.

Lakomek added that Hastings is the current senator from Schroeder Hall, so she will be stepping down completely after the elections.

The elections will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 23. Primaries will be held the week prior, on Sept. 16, to determine the official candidates in the Abbotsford, McCormick, and O’Donnell elections.

While former elections have a surplus of candidates, the elections for two commuter senators, a McCabe senator, and a Mashuda senator, are all still vacant. In addition, the election candidates for Cobeen and Schroeder are running unopposed.

Students can vote in the elections online, at www.musg.mu.edu/vote.

In other news from the meeting:

• Student Health Services director Dana Mills gave a presentation regarding the university’s plans in case of a H1N1 outbreak. Mills said the free H1N1 vaccine should be available after October and added that the university’s recommendation was that all students who can should get vaccinated.
• In addition to the tangible progress made over the summer, Thomas told the senate that he had been in talks with IT to try to improve wireless connection issues, and was also trying to get improvements made to the Brooks Lounge area of the Alumni Memorial Union.
• MUSG will be hosting “At the Intersection: Race, Class, and the Environment” on Sept. 17 at 6:30 in AMU 407. The event will be a dinner followed by a discussion of environmental issues in the context of race and class, especially in an urban environment.
• Senator Emil Ovbiagele expressed his intentions at the meeting to draft legislation recommending the extension of visitation hours, and to lower the cost of color printing. No formal action was taken on either measure.