The new Student Senate held its first meeting on Monday, approving the appointments of students to 17 different Senate offices, J-Board positions, and student representative seats on Board of Trustees committees and the Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee.
Grand Marshal Michael Borzumate compiled a packet of short biographies on each of his appointees, which was distributed to the senators at the meeting. The senators were given an opportunity to ask questions, but most appointments went through unchallenged and in the end all 17 appointments were approved without a single vote against.
Borzumate was impressed by the enthusiasm he saw in both the new senators, with whom he met individually in the last week, and in non-senators who wanted to be involved, many of whom were among those appointed at the meeting.
“We’ve managed to get some good people from outside the Senate to be appointed,” he said. “We found some really good people that need to be involved.”
In addition to the appointments, the Senate voted to give notice that they will suspend their bylaws next week to discuss two changes suggested by Graduate Senator Mary Kate DiTursi. As outgoing Rules and Elections Committee chair, DiTursi recommended the changes as a “gift” to newly appointed RNE chair Matthew Ezovski to address two challenges the committee faced in the past year.
One of the changes would extend the term of RNE committee members to end of the spring semester or until they are replaced, whichever comes first. Currently, members’ terms end after the end of the appeals period for the final elections or after appeals have been resolved. This presents a challenge for the next RNE chair, who must prepare a handbook for the freshman elections that are held in the fall, but begins with a sparse committee. Because of this, it is difficult to get the handbook ready before summer break and waiting until the fall delays the elections, leaving the class unrepresented in both the Senate and the E-Board for a longer period of time.
The other change would make the RNE chair an officer of the Senate. While mostly a semantic change, this would give the RNE chair the authority to spend Senate money, which past chairs have done with somewhat implicit permission from the GM. Additionally, DiTursi said from a more philosophical standpoint, “I think it’s very important that the elections chair and the Senate acknowledge the degree of responsibility of the elections chair.”
Borzumate expects the Senate’s feedback campaign to begin next week, holding off so as not to overburden the senators in their first few weeks. The campaign will focus on the three dining halls to hit on-campus independent students, the McNeil Room at lunchtime for graduate students, and a selection of fraternity chapters.
The Senate will meet again before the end of the semester. That meeting will also focus on appointments, including appointments to the Executive Board that will be brought forward by President of the Union Suzanne Peluso.
