Teary-eyed Italian professor Robin Wright ran straight from Tuesday night’s Student Government Association meeting to tell fellow faculty members the good news.

Student representatives passed a bill to reimburse the language departments $5,500 to pay the honorarium of the keynote speaker for the Language and Culture Fest, Rob Schmitz, China Bureau Chief of American Public Media’s Marketplace.

The bill was passed with 68 percent of the student representatives’ vote after being tabled to the finance committee last week.

Presenters of the bill, AddRan Student Representatives Bryan Tony and Abigail Buckley and a group of representatives from various language clubs on campus, discussed how important this inaugural year of the Language and Culture Fest is to the university.

“I think it’s really important for us as Spanish majors and Italian majors, or just all language majors in general just to see a little bit into that culture because many people don’t get the chance to study abroad,” Spanish major Meg Griffin said.

Even between the language departments’ budgets and sponsorships, the language departments still would have been short for money to pay the entire cost of the Language and Culture Fest.

Finance committee chair Jeffrey Chatman said the language departments and clubs came to the Activities Funding Board to receive money for the Language and Culture Fest, but were sent away with nothing because it is primarily a faculty driven event.

“I think that if [the Language and Culture Fest] is successful this year, and it has been so far, that more people will come forward and contribute in the future,” Wright said.

Other items from Tuesday night’s meeting:

• Applications are now available for students interested in filling various open seats in the House.
• Additional applications will soon be available for student organizations that did not receive sufficient or any money from SGA.
• Throughout the month of October, SGA will be promoting “Orgtober.” Student representatives will be reaching out to all TCU organizations to promote unity and help establish a more clear line of communication.