Student Senate 10/16

This week’s Student Senate meeting was dominated by elections, as a relatively short meeting in a full Senate room included the induction of new senators.

The newly elected senators include: at-large representatives Grace Kiernan, Michael Bentley and Christopher Bove; on-campus constituency Taylor Webster and Cierra Wornum; off-campus constituency AJ Lowther, Luke Scatenato, Billy Ferrara, Jared Keeman and Ryan Loftus; and first-year constituency Adriana Turano, Franchesca Rocha, Jolene Griffin, Peyton Thiel and TJ Salvo. Rhiannon Small was inducted as the College of Health Sciences representative and Jake St. Germain was inducted as the College of Engineering representative.

Much of the meeting after elections entailed an introduction to Senate for the newcomers, with older senators offering their support and encouraging them to get as involved as possible. 

“We definitely need all hands on deck,” said President Nick Marotta, who inducted the new members. “We can really use all of your help in planning things and getting them working. It’s a great way to get involved.” 

Marotta’s message and other messages of welcome were offered and echoed by other older members of Senate.

 In the rest of the meeting, Director of Treasury Joseph Lachance announced that he would be meeting with URI’s music program. He had obtained an invoice showing that they had spent some of their budget on T-shirts last year. Student Senate doesn’t allow organizations to use their budgets on apparel such as T-shirts, and Lachance stated “We may have to follow this up with some problems.”

Campus Affairs Chair Gage Blanchflower announced that the Safety Light Walk – an event making sure the blue emergency lights around campus are functional – will occur today at 6:30 p.m. 

“I’d want [to have this event] every fall and spring semester,” Blanchflower stated.

Additionally, Instruments Chair John Bagley announced he was working on the “Satellite of Power” organization on the Providence campus to give them more say in campus affairs. Bagley also announced that he had received a complaint from the Providence campus earlier in the week, though he declined to go into detail on the nature of the complaint.