Student Senate Report 3/31/2022

This week in the Student Senate: the selection and decision for the 2022 commencement speaker and a bill calling for approval of the budget for student recognized organizations.

Speaker Christopher Bove began the meeting by announcing that the Senate earned enough money to pay for their formal, after receiving $1,000 from the Student Entertainment Committee.

After all of the announcements, the Senate then had the finalists for the upcoming 2022 commencement speaker position give their speeches. The first finalist was Brian Martin, a secondary education and English major with minors in psychology and leadership studies.

“The real magic that’s worth talking about today is each of us have taken a journey to reach this moment right now,” Martin said. 

He talked about the beginning of his, and many other seniors’ journeys on the Quad during orientation, as well as the experience and knowledge he gained throughout the four years for all the graduating seniors.

Senator Mitchell Asante, the second finalist, spoke about his family and how he immigrated to America from Ghana when he was only 11 years old in 2012.

He talked a lot about how his family encouraged him to go to college and be the first in his family to graduate from college. He said that being a first-generation college student wasn’t easy. 

“Education allows us to better understand the world in which we live in, through education we become more thoughtful about what happens around us,” Asante said. “I’m also speaking to the first-generation college students and students that come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom are graduating and are in the crowd with me today.”

He expressed his pride for the entire senior class, and how excited he was to graduate with them.

The final candidate for the 2022 commencement speaker was Sarah Behm, a human development and family studies major. She talked about her journey through college, receiving an associate’s degree from the Community College of Rhode Island and being a Rhode Island Promise Student. 

“Like a couple of classes before us ours is one that had to navigate through the challenges of being undergraduate students, both before and through the COVID-19 pandemic,” Behm said. “This is a particularly special moment for me because I wasn’t able to attend a traditional graduation ceremony when I obtained my associate’s degree.”

After all three of the finalists spoke, the senators conducted a secret-ballot vote, which determined that Martin would be the 2022 commencement speaker. 

After the voting and the reports of the standing committees, the senators discussed the 2022-23 academic year budget. The senators went through the six-page budget document page-by-page.

 “Each club is a case-by-case basis when it comes to the budget,” Director of Treasury Chris Hoover said. “There are so many different factors that, you know, that have to be kind of checked over before you decide alright, this is what I want them to have.”

The senators discussed the different funding allocated to clubs, as well as potentially cutting the budget of some clubs who haven’t been “pulling their weight” this past year and reallocating their money.

One of the organizations that President Bolu Taiwo wanted to reallocate money to was Uhuru SaSa.

“That was like the first multicultural specifically Black organization at URI so it has a lot of significance…and just looking at them I saw that they don’t have any money for first-night, which is $50, so I would hope someone can reach in to give them $50 as well as they have no money for programming,” Taiwo said. “Uhuru SaSa, for people who don’t know, hold their annual fashion show which is open for everyone to walk in…I’m just saying motion to $20,000 for programming.”

After all five pages of the budget for clubs were discussed, the Senate discussed the sixth page of the budget, which was related to stipends.

Near the end of the meeting, the Senate passed new dining plans for the upcoming semesters, a bill calling for amendments to the University of Rhode Island Student Senate Bylaws, a bill calling for the confirmation and certification of the spring 2022 election results and a resolution calling for the formal censure of Senator Ramez Rizk. All of these bills were passed.

The next Senate meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.