Student Senators on Sunday discussing the State Board of Higher Education and guidelines for performance funding. Photo by Ethan Arlien/The Dakota Student.

Senate passed a resolution Sunday night supporting the State Board of Higher Education to establish guidelines for performance funding. The performance funding would help to cover estimated budget shortfalls for the university so it is not forced to make budget cuts.

“This will set specific requirements for each campus,” Student Body President Nick Creamer said. “This will give the administrative leadership something to strive for.”

The SBHE is in the beginning stages of planning a bill for this, but performance incentives could include retention rates for students.

Next year, UND has an estimated $3.3 million shortfall. Money from performance incentive funding could cover part of this shortfall.

If the SBHE passes a bill for performance incentive funding, each public university in the state would have their own specific benchmarks set by the SBHE.

Other business

College of Arts and Sciences’ Lisa Burger was at the meeting Sunday night to get input from senate about ways the college can improve in the future.

The interactive session included four poster boards labeled with the words “strengths”, “weaknesses”, “threats” and “opportunities.” All senators were given time to write comments on each board.

Landon Bahl, who helped to put on the #besomebody event, also was on hand to give feedback on the event. Senate was also shown a video from besomebody’s YouTube page with footage from the event.

“UND was the first school to spell out ‘#besomebody,” Bahl said. “The second was UC Davis last Friday, so that is pretty cool.”

There also were two appointments at the meeting.

The first was Ryan Fraase to the Internal Affairs Coordinator position. The position is new and is taking over the duties of the local government affairs commissioner and new responsibilities.

The other appointment was Sen. Alan Oberg to the position of Election Committee chairman.

Megan Hoffman is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at megan.hoffman@my.und.edu.