The University of Rhode Island’s Student Senate held a short meeting this Wednesday with a new moderator presiding over the meeting.
Caleb Hilyard was nominated as interim moderator by President Austyn Ramsay this past Monday, and was confirmed by the Senate to become Student Senate’s new moderator. This move comes following the resignation of Annabel Cimbal, the previous moderator.
The Senate passed an amendment to the URI Student Senate Constitution which consisted of changes as to how jurists are confirmed for the Senate.
“We’ve had a very hard time with the Panel to Elect the Court, and it takes a long time for it to happen,” Senator Christopher Bove, the bill’s handler, said. “It’s a very inefficient process. So this changes the way jurists for the Court are confirmed.”
The new process in this amendment gets rid of the Panel to Elect the Court and instead changes the system of judicial elections so that the full Student Senate Assembly votes to confirm or deny presidential judicial nominations.
The Senate also certified the results of the elections that occurred on Oct. 15-16.
Annabelle Gibson was elected as an at-large senator, and Marland Chang won the open off-campus position. Chris Hoover, Olivia Johnson, Angelica Tyson, Mary Henry and Emily Gamache all were elected as first-year representatives. Julia Pitts was elected as the College of Business representative, and Destiny Degnan was elected to represent the College of Environment and Life Sciences. Additionally, the student body voted to approve the First Amendment to the Student Senate Constitution.
The new senators will be sworn in at the next meeting.
Student Senate also unanimously voted to recognize Global Brigades as a student organization. Global Brigades is an organization that, according to their mission statement, “[participates] in year-round recruitment, fundraising and awareness events that ultimately result in participation in a [seven to nine] day brigade, where we actively participate in programming.”
“They came in and met all of our requirements,” Student Organizations Committee Chair Katie Siegle said.
Academic Advisor Carl Stiles also spoke with the Senate about the Senate’s attendance problems this semester.
“Technically, right now, there are nine people that should be removed from Senate due to lack of attendance,” Stiles said.
Stiles closed the meeting by reminding everyone to stay safe this Halloween.
“Please take care of each other,” Stiles said. “Please take care of yourself and your friends, because this virus is not going away.”