By: Jon P. Dusza and Ava C. Green
With the scribes of The Griffin sitting at their own table, graciously provided by the United Students Association (USA), their meeting on Friday, Sept. 13, was gaveled into session at exactly 2:30 p.m.
At this meeting, the senate’s focus was on increasing the presence of their organization, as well as its members. They discussed how to make senators more recognizable and accessible to students, starting with more social media posts to introduce senators. They also emphasized communicating USA’s events and programming, and discussed outreaches for student involvement.
The first order of business following the attendance roll call was executive reports. During Executive Vice President (EVP) Deglopper’s report, Senator Marja’e Johnson raised the idea of senators serving their office hours outside of the USA office. The idea was that students outside of the senate would more easily be able to voice their concerns to the senators in busier places on campus than the USA club room. It would also help many senators who are busy with other commitments around campus to easily make it to their office hours. EVP Deglopper said it would be considered. After Aaron Hall, Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations, gave his report, Senator Smith asked when people would be able to begin applying for senate. She also asked when graduate students would enter the body, a new feature of USA this year. EVP Deglopper replied that such business will be handled by the Student Engagement and Leadership Development office this year, and Vice President of Business and Finance (VPBF) Kaderli added that the longer period we’re seeing before senate applications is intentional, as they try to allow new students to get acclimated before potentially joining senate.
Next was the cabinet report session, which was fairly uneventful seeing how early it is in the semester. After, there was a structured discussion in which senators were asked to discuss ideas for events. VPBF Kaderli highlighted the fact that USA has an increased budget this year, so any endeavors which USA decides to partake in can be more ambitious than in years past.
Senators suggested event ideas ranging from textbook drives to CPR certification events to USA senate town hall events. VPBF Kaderli brought up an idea which she said has been discussed on and off for years now: to spend some of the money on a mural on campus in an area that needs spicing up. This all goes along with USA’s proclaimed overarching goal this year: to increase visibility on campus and, as Senator Johnson said, to “show ourselves mighty and show ourselves strong.”
After an uneventful period of open discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 3:10 p.m. The senate will have its next meeting Sept. 20 at 2:30 p.m.
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