Marquette Student Government elected two new Student Organization Allocation committee members and a budget committee member at their Thursday meeting.

The two winning senators in the SOA committee election were Paige Jorgensen, a senior in the College of Communication, and Drew Halunen, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. The winner of the budget committee election was Alexandra Engler, a freshman in the College of Communication.

All three elected senators ran unopposed, but required a majority vote of 12 senators to be elected.

During the period of questioning allotted for the SOA committee election, Jorgensen and Halunen both said they would be fair and evenhanded when considering how money should be allocated to student organizations.

Both senators said they would prefer to give money to on-campus events rather than off-campus ones. Jorgensen added that the quality of an application for off-campus funding would make a tangible difference in her decision.

“It’s all about the well-written application,” Jorgensen said.

Jorgensen and Halunen also said they would strive for fair allocation of funding to club sports, a historically neglected set of student organizations.

While the election for SOA Committee members went smoothly, the budget committee election was more problematic. At the beginning of the meeting, no members had formally stated their interest in the position.

When the time for the election came, however, Engler was nominated and eventually elected to the position. She said her qualifications for the position included her organizational skills and her previous position as business manager for her high school newspaper, which taught her the importance of having a budget.

In other news from the meeting:

• Jeff Janz, assistant vice president of the Division of Student Affairs, introduced himself to the assembly and announced he will work closely with MUSG, especially with its advisor John Dooley and Vice President Stephanie Stopka.
• President Henry Thomas suggested the creation of an MUSG outreach committee to actively reach out to student organizations as part of a general push to be more proactive.
• Senators Holly Peterson and Giuseppe Pappalardo of the Alumni Memorial Union Advisory Board announced that traffic in the AMU was up 30 percent since the creation of the Meal Exchange program last year, as well as traffic in the Brooks Lounge. They also said computers will be added to the first floor of the AMU, near the U.S. Bank, this fall.
• Stopka mentioned that the Milwaukee Police Department would be watching for jaywalkers in light of the recent hit-and-run accident on 10th Street and Wisconsin Avenue. She suggested senators inform their constituents to increase awareness of the issue and the potential for jaywalkers to be cited by MPD.