Texas Wesleyan Student Government Association President Zahraa Saheb announced she will be resigning at Friday’s general business meeting.

Saheb said she is resigning because she accepted a positon from U.S. Congressman Marc Veasey (TX-33) and will begin working in Washington D.C. on March 26.

“I will be working as a legislative correspondent there,” Saheb said.

Saheb, a senior political science and English major, said her deans and professors have been supportive in letting her finish the semester online.

“I will only be flying in for graduation,” she said. “It is super exciting.”

As stated in the by-laws, Saheb said once she is no longer president, the SGA vice president, Alyssa Hutchinson, will take over as president.

“She is going to take over this role for this rest of the semester and that is leaving her position open,” Saheb said.

Instead of filling that position, Saheb said that she and Hutchinson agreed they want to leave the vice president position vacant for the rest of the semester.

“We like the dynamic right now that we have, and we are not trying to move people around and switch up the dynamic,” she said, “but also we only have a couple of weeks left before elections take place, so we really don’t see a reason in filling that position.”

Hutchinson, a sophomore psychology and biology major, served as the representative for the School of Arts and Letters last semester and moved up to vice president this year.

“I feel like my move from being representative on the other end of the table to being president is crazy stuff, but I think that is something students can look at to understand that there’s progress to be made from here,” Hutchinson said.

SGA Treasurer Nicholas Davis, a freshman political science major, said he is sad to see Saheb go because she has been a good link in SGA.

“She has implemented a lot of good policy changes for us,” Davis said. “I think that we will be able to function without her. I am not saying that in a negative way, I just think that she is putting in such a good system right now that we will be able to function with her being gone.”

Davis said he thinks Hutchinson is incredibly qualified and capable of having the president position.

“She is a really great person. She has a really great work ethic, and I think that we are still going to be able to function at a really high capacity with her in there,” he said. “I think she is going to implement some really good changes.”

During Friday’s meeting, SGA released a statement regarding the situation with former head baseball coach Mike Jeffcoat. Jeffcoat lost his job Thursday after an email he sent to a Colorado athlete went viral.

“On behalf of the Student Government Association, we would like to issue this as our official statement regarding the recent events that have happened over the past two months. These acts of discrimination do not speak for Texas Wesleyan or its students. Wesleyan has always been a place of community and diversity, and it is times like this when we as students must come together and show what Rams are made of.”

Students from Wesleyan come from all different backgrounds, the statement read, and are a part of the “Smaller. Smarter. Experience.”

“The Student Government Association works to provide all students with a safe and nurturing environment that is respectful of all races, ideologies, religions and backgrounds. We support and commend the university administration for taking the appropriate the recent discriminatory behavior of the head baseball coach Mike Jeffcoat. We encourage all of our students to continue to speak out and condemn any racist or discriminatory behavior. We, the Texas Wesleyan Student Government Association have zero tolerance regarding such behaviors and invite all students to continue to report such conduct.”

Hutchinson, who authored the statement along with Saheb, said it is extremely important SGA comments on situations such as the situation with Jeffcoat because it effects students and future students. She felt the administration was right in releasing Jeffcoat as an employee.

“Not only did they take the right action, but the entire thing happened in like a day and that is faster than anything we can get through because we have to take like a week,” she said. “I was impressed.”

Saheb said releasing a statement over the matter is important for SGA because the student body should hear their sentiments.

“We are representing them and letting them know that we are their support, that we support what they are feeling, and we support what is going on right now,” she said. “Just letting them know that we are active. We are involved. We are hearing things.”

During the meeting, representative Jose Torres introduced a bill for the organization buying student tickets for Theatre Wesleyan productions.

“Whereas Theatre Wesleyan has celebrated over 60 years of producing plays and musicals at Texas Wesleyan University, whereas students have expressed the need for financial assistance to accommodate Theatre Wesleyan ticket cost ranging from $5 for plays and $10 for the annual spring musical,” Torres read, “whereas the Texas Wesleyan Student Government Association strives to give each student the opportunity to excel in every way possible, whereas over 400 students attended fall 2017 productions resulting in an overspend of the allotted budget provided from SGA.”

Torres said this bill is where the SGA code to see the plays for free in the past comes from.

“This gives students the ability to watch shows for free and SGA pays for it. Recently we had the show, ‘The Important Hats of the 20^th Century’ where 196 students attended which was $980,” Torres said. “But every year this bill gets approved and each year the amount of students that go to the shows increase so this is something I think is important for students of Texas Wesleyan to be able to experience these productions that Theatre Wesleyan puts on.”

The bill was originally asking for $3,000 from SGA before being amended to $2,750 and was tabled for this Friday’s general business meeting.