“UCO Softball” on 14 Volume 114, Issue 11
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VISTA “The Student Voice Since 1903”
Follow the Vista: UCentralMedia.com vistanews1903 @TheVista1903 thevista1903 The Vista Monday, April 10, 2017
Student Congressional Violation UCO Student Congress Breaks Open Meetings Act
Kalina Popova, Caleb Shaw and Stockton Duvall, the Congressional Leadership of the UCO Student Association speak during a UCO Student Congress meeting on Monday, April 3. The UCO Student Congress violation of an Oklahoma law may void several pieces of legislation that the association has passed in recent months. (Ryan Naeve/The Vista)
The Vista
@TheVista1903 Staff Reports By Kateleigh Mills, editor-in-chief and Megan Prather, managing editor
Several pieces of legislation passed in the UCO Student Congress over the past year could have the potential of being void due to a violation of the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act. Three senators in the UCO Student Congress claim that the Congressional Leadership have not followed the standards of OMA, which states that the agenda for a regularly held meeting should be posted at least 24 hours in advance, excluding weekends. This provision of OMA can be found under Section Three under B titled “Notice to the Public and Agendas.” UCO Student Congress Senator, Parliamentarian and Floor Leader, Caleb Power, said that he spoke to the Congressional Leadership comprised of Secretary Kalina Popova, Vice Chair Stockton Duvall and Chair Caleb Shaw - privately
on multiple occasions for breaking this section of OMA before bringing it up on the floor of student congress last Monday. Popova denied at the meeting that Power came to talk to her about the issue. However, both Shaw and Duvall acknowledged that Power came to talk to them. Power said during the “student concerns” portion in the last Congress meeting that students of UCO should be able to walk by the UCOSA office and see posted on the door a record of votes, time and place of a meeting and what is to be voted on in the next session, something Power claims the leadership hasn’t been doing. According to the attorney general opinion (Opinion 79-134) the student government associations and residence halls associations are required by law to follow the Open Meeting Act and are “compelled to follow the provisions of the Act in the manner in which they are enacted.” “Yes, we are supposed to post these things because it is the morally right and transparent thing to do, but actually Oklahoma State Law mandates it,” Power said. See”OMA Violation” on 8
(Provided/ Aryn Robinson).
AAF Takes First at the National Student Advertising Competition Jessica Phillips @TheJessPhillips Reporter
UCO’s American Advertising Federation made history on April 6 by placing first for the second consecutive year in the District 10 National Student Advertising Competition. This is the first time in 35 years that the same school has won consecutively. “This is an immensely competitive situation. There are a lot of huge universities here that expect to win and they were hostile to our
recognition,” Adviser Sandy Martin said. “We didn’t know if we would place.” The class of 24 students developed an integrative marketing campaign for Tai Pei Frozen Foods to present at the conference in Fort Worth, Texas. Senior Strategic Communications major Tommy Johnson was a first-time presenter at the competition. “It was a lot more intense than I ever thought it would be, for sure. It is extremely competitive and very, very tough,” Johnson said. See “AAF Wins” on 6