Student Senate recognized new student organizations, passed a bylaws bill and elected new Executive Board members in their first meeting of the Buck-Donnelly administration on Wednesday.
Student Organization and Advisory Review Committee Chairman Michael Bachilas presented two organization recognition bills.
The first was for the URI Animal Welfare Club, whose goal is to raise awareness of the vegetarian lifestyle and animal welfare on campus. The organization has worked with the dining halls this year to provide better options for vegetarians and vegans and has worked with the Humane League to better educate others on animal welfare improvement.
The URI Animal Welfare Club was recognized unanimously.
Next up was URI Club Softball. The team is trying to find women interested in competitive fastpitch softball at the collegiate level. Although the league they associate with only allows women to play during games, men are welcome to practice with the team.
URI Club Softball was recognized with three abstentions
The Elections Committee presented a bill that would eliminate slandering during Student Senate elections, which would make future elections more fair and match the election bylaws of peer universities. Members of the Elections Committee couldn’t confirm or deny whether slander had been used in the previous campaign, but stressed that this was an effort to simply improve the process and their bylaws.
The elections bylaws bill was approved unanimously.
Student Senate elected new members of the Senate Executive Board.
Zach Taylor was elected by fellow senators as the Chief Information Officer after a statement of full support was given by President Ryan Buck.
Kennedy Tate was elected as Campus Affairs Committee Chairperson, Riley Temple as Academic Affairs Committee Chairperson, Nicolette St. Amand as Cultural Affairs Committee Chairperson and Dan Bertel was elected as External Affairs Committee Chairperson.
Romanuel Percy was elected as Treasurer after facing a crowded field, as Darien Strassfield, Tristram Howard, My Vu and Danny DePetro were all nominated for the position.
Adriana Wilding was re elected unanimously as the Director of Communications.
Ryan McWeeny, Kelly Watka, John Morabito, Evan Cummiskey and Jared Mattern were all elected to the Rules and Ethics Committee.