Wednesday, Sept. 19, marked the first meeting for the Senate. The members in each committee were determined, and potential new criteria for club recognition was discussed.
The Senate is one of the three branches that make up the Student Government Union (SGU). It accompanies the Campus Activities Board and the Executive Board. The Senate oversees making decisions on how SGU is run and organized, along with allocating funds to clubs, projects or charities. Essentially, SGU determines what happens to a majority of the student activity fees. Because SGU would be unreasonable to have every student on campus vote on every little decision of where to allocate funds, senators are elected to represent the student body and make decisions on behalf of the students.
“The main goals of the Senate are to be the voice of the students, to hear what the students are saying and to work on implementing those things,” said Senate faculty advisor Mr. Francis Orlando. He explains that there are 25 senators, and there’s a reason why there are so many. They’re supposed to be there talking to their classmates, talking to people in their dorms, talking to their roommates and talking to their constituents about what they want to see happening on campus and how they can put those things into action.
Some of the goals of the Senate this year are to increase the visibility of the senators on campus, to increase the accountability of the senators to the students and to increase the efficiency of the Senate meetings.
“We have developed goals for the year which include increasing visibility. The upcoming ‘Taco Bout It’ event is our first step,” said Vice-President of Operations Celine-Deon Palmer. “I want students to know who [the senators]are and know their faces so they can remember who to call on when they need to voice a concern.”
This event was last hosted by the Senate two years ago. Palmer hopes that the renewal of this event will help restore the relationship between the student body and the Senate.
Other ways that Palmer said the Senate plans to increase visibility is through social media, helping out in on-campus events such as Haunted Marmion, wearing their polos at least once every other week and having ongoing conversations with students as their representative.
“We have also agreed to hold each other accountable. We plan to support each other by confronting issues as they come up as well as giving compliments to motivate each other. We hope to be an efficient Senate body this year…so we can be as efficient as possible in handling the concerns of our fellow students,” said Palmer. “These concerns will be shown through the work of the philanthropy, environmental activities, research and marketing, standing rules/judicial committees, as well as the class committees.”
Additionally, Palmer plans to promote their new online suggestion box.
“We also want to be accepting suggestions from the student body all year in order to build communication between Student Government and the students we yearn to serve,” said Palmer.
Palmer thought that the first meeting went extremely well.
“I think the year has been going very well so far and I am looking forward to all the brilliant things that our Senate Board will achieve on campus this year. I am excited to see all the senators grow as leaders, achieve great things on campus and satisfy the needs of the student body. Everyone seems very passionate, energetic and motivated,” stated Palmer.
