Executive Vice President (EVP), Erick Armando Silva Jr., called for an Emergency Senate meeting to be held on April 8, 2026, to discuss and vote on the rest of the items on the agenda that the Senate wasn’t able to get to during the last regular Senate meeting. This meeting was held in Kaplan and began at 6:30 p.m., and they went straight to work.
Vote on New Student Organization’s Approval
Vice President of Student Life, Fatimah Amer, began the process by explaining to the senate that the Student Life senators will briefly describe the proposed student org and what their mission is. After presenting each org., the senate was given the opportunity to make a two-minute statement about any of the organizations they would like to focus on, and any senator had another two-minute statement to respond or make another statement. These time limits were implemented to avoid discussions going off topic or repetitive rambling on the same subject. Some of the heavier discussions arose about student org redundancy and how orgs might have the same mission. However, the biggest organization that was up for discussion was Claude Builder Club (CBC). Claude Builder Club aimed to help teach students how to use AI responsibly and use it as a tool in our school. However, Senators had ethical concerns about the organization regarding the environmental impacts of AI and the overuse of AI in schoolwork, and specifically in the realm of design. Senator Julian Loughney raised concerns about the negative implications AI has on the planet and arose the concern of the executive board. The president of this proposed organization is also a Claude Ambassador for Anthropic, leaving senators concerned that this might be a marketing scheme to increase usership for Claude AI that CBC would offer for free. Another statement of concern that the Senate wanted to know was how much these organizations are proposing for their budget. Due to the Finance Board Policies, the Student Life Committee was prohibited from sharing budget information. After several more statements, the Senate was given another 5 minutes to discuss with each other and transitioned into the voting process, where all visitors who represented these proposed student orgs were escorted out of the room. The following is the list of orgs that got approved and rejected. You may access the direct voting records that contain the total count, which also contain what senators voted on, by emailing sga@illinoistech.edu.
APPROVED: Bike Up, Wrestling Club, Latin Dance, K- Element, PHD Community, Stoic Fellowship, IEEE, Basketball Club, Automotive Club, Renaissance Club, Arabic Debate Club, Interdisciplinary Biology Club, Seed Club.
REJECTED: Claude Builder Club, Eta Kappa Nu, Ready @20.
Proposed Resolution Presented by Academic Affairs
Vice President of Academic Affairs, Delwin Menjani, and Senator, Aidan Crouch, presented two new resolutions on behalf of the Academic Affairs Committee. The first one is the Resolution for the extension of Academic Add/Drop Deadlines. In previous years, students were given twelve days from the start of the course to either add or drop a full-semester course without incurring tuition charges. However, as of the Fall 2025 Semester, it dropped to 8 days. Academic Affairs believed this was unfair and too short a timeline. So, they proposed restoring the deadline to 12 days from the start of the course to give more time to students to feel out their courses and what they are getting themselves into. Results Pending.
The next resolution proposed was the Resolution for Curriculum Catalog Standardization and Dual Degree Transparency. Illinois Tech currently maintains multiple versions of its curriculum catalog with noticeable inconsistencies, where these inconsistencies create confusion for both prospective and current students when planning their academic pathways, increasing the risk of misinformation. Currently, many dual degree programs do not provide a single, consolidated curriculum outlining the requirements for both degrees, and the absence of these unified catalogs makes it unnecessarily difficult for students. This Resolution proposes a standardized curriculum catalog to be developed and implemented across all departments and programs, and that each dual degree program shall provide a single curriculum sheet clearly outlining the requirements of both degrees.
Open Floor:
During open floor, Elio Armas Rojo called the Senate’s attention to two serious issues in this university. The first being Illinois Tech’s treatment of AI. Elio expressed that Illinois Tech welcomed AI to its curriculum and resources. AI has been abused in every department when creating essays, completing homework assignments, and most especially, in the design institute and the College of Architecture. Students have been having AI create and design their own projects when students should be the ones at hand when constructing these products, but it has not been the case. Illinois Tech has started to use AI assistants to assist students in job finding, Talon AI. Elio has asked the Senate to consider the AI crisis on campus and potentially find a solution on how we can regulate and push back on the excessive use of AI.
Elio’s Second topic was the use of Concur as our travel agency. Concur is the platform that Illinois Tech uses for students when it comes to booking trips for study abroad, conferences, or anything school-related within Illinois Tech. Concur is relatively helpful when it comes to booking flights and hotels, and everything is being done in one space without the issue of a lack of communication, as a chaperone or supervisor can do all the bookings for all participants in one place. However, Concur has been charging students way more than they should be. As Elio explained, when booking a trip to attend a Landscaping conference, he claimed that booking these items separately on another site is way cheaper than what Concur charges. Elio asks the Senate to look into this matter and to explore any alternatives to this travel agency.
After a productive meeting, the Senate called for adjournment and ended at 8:00 p.m. SGA will have its next and final senate meeting on April 15, 2026, in the MTCC Ballroom and will start at 6:30 p.m.