The reigns of Student Government power officially changed hands Wednesday night when President Stuart Watkins and Vice President Martina Scheuermann took the oath of office in front of the SG Senate. Though they were officially inaugurated at 9:30 p.m., it was the second time they were sworn in that day. Watkins and Scheuermann first swore to uphold the bylaws of the SG constitution at a modest ceremony in front of the Memorial Tower earlier in the day. The ticket didn’t officially assume power until the official inauguration at the Senate meeting.The first inauguration ceremony began with a welcome from former SG President Colorado Robertson when he recognized the newly elected SG senators and College Council members. Robertson said he expects the next administration to have a large workload ahead but said Watkins is fully capable of handling the responsibility.”He’s got a bigger job than we had,” Robertson said. “He has to maintain what we built and start a whole new series of initiatives.”Robertson has included Watkins and Scheuermann in many SG activities since they were elected, including the final session of Robertson’s “Straight Talk with SG” on Wednesday.Though Watkins was in class during the event, Robertson introduced Scheuermann to students and discussed issues such as the new bus system fees and the realignment of colleges. While other students left campus during spring break, Robertson and former SG vice president Shannon Bates stayed in Baton Rouge to meet with Watkins and Scheuermann to help them get started on their path to student leadership. They spent last week meeting with University administrators, introducing the president-elect and vice president-elect to important contacts around campus.During the first week of transition, Watkins and Scheuermann met with Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Astrid Merget to discuss the realignment of different colleges.”We wanted to make sure we had a full understanding of the realignment and that she knew the students’ concerns about the issue,” Scheuermann said.Scheuermann said there are no foreseen scholarship cuts because of the realignment of colleges into different departments, and the realignment would not affect the credibility of student degrees.Scheuermann and Bates met last Tuesday for a personal meeting about the responsibilities of being SG vice president. The vice presidents spoke about the continuation of Bates’ Orgs2Geaux program, which has attempted to reach student organizations throughout the semester.Though the program will be continued next semester, Scheuermann said she will play less of a role in Orgs2Geaux than Bates did. The program will fall under the jurisdiction of the new and still unfilled position of director of Organizational Outreach.The new executives also had an introductory meeting with Chancellor Michael Martin. Though they did not thoroughly discuss pressing University issues, they did set up additional meetings for the rest of this semester. Watkins and Scheuermann also met with SG coordinator Cortney Pitcher to better understand the SG budget.”We’ve been meeting administrators since the campaign started, and it was nice to sit with them again and take the next step forward,” Watkins said.Watkins’ proposed budget was authored by Sen. Chris Sellers, College of Arts and Sciences and the chair of the Finance Committee, and presented to the executive staff for review. Watkins built on Sellers’ budget after working on it with Robertson.Watkins said his budget would establish the new First Year Experience department, which previously had to share its budget with the University College for Freshmen Year. Watkins also said the new budget would work to cut down on SG paper use.The SG senate approved the budget Wednesday night.Watkins said he and his administration are still figuring out the proper avenues to take when dealing with the impending cuts to higher education. “This is going to be the thing students are going to have to face in the coming months,” Watkins said. “As student leaders, we need to be prepared to take a stance on things.”Like Robertson, Watkins said he supports endorsing performance-based cuts for the University rather than the proposed across-the-board cuts.—-Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected]